Lover's on the Fifth Floor
by ffanon
Summary: Set in the distant future of Season 5, Patrick Jane meets Red John; who has every intention of killing him, however, Jane survives the encounter; but with a fair amount of damage, and here is how the damage proceeds to affect his life.
1. Before the lions take their share

A dark grey sky is the first thing he sees.

Although it's not really a dark grey, rather black mixed in with the kind of deep rich blue that originates from the night time skies of country sides mixed in with the light of surrounding stars till it becomes a lighter color.

The second thing he see's are the rain drops dotting the surface above him; little sphere's of color, with a thin white halo surrounding them.

The third thing he notices is that he's observing the rain drops instead of having the raindrops fall on him.

That's when his other senses, with the exception of sight, return to him; he can hear the slow rumble of the engine as it gets closer to death, the sound of the damp gravel and mud crunching underneath the tires; which he can smell, by the way.

He slowly comes to realize that he's lying in the second row of a car; most likely a SUV due to the thick black seat he's sprawled across; however the car seems rather old due to material of the seats, and that brings reason to battle with the earlier theory of its brand.

"Have a nice nap, Patrick?" Chirps the voice in front seat; his skin crawls at that tone, it's thick with the underlying brand of sarcasm of someone who's spent their entire life in a big game of cat and mouse, and they've always had the role of the cat, can only receive.

He squirms slightly in the back seat and discovers, without much surprise that his hands are wrapped behind his back with a thick rope, and some of the fibers that have come loose are pressed to the skin of his wrists with dried blood.

His feet are wrapped up too.

He squirms and pushes himself up and glances at the driver's seat; but he can't see anything past the murky glass separating him and the driver.

He opens his mouth to say something, but his tongue is heaving; useless and too large in his mouth.

He knows the driver is watching him and his feeble, pathetic attempts to speak because he clicks his tongue and sighs. "I hope I didn't give you too much sedative. We're on a very limited schedule."

It's those words that force him to realize he probably isn't getting out of this alive (but it isn't much surprise to him(, he swallows the thought and it goes down with a bitter taste. "Where –"His first word comes out chalky; and it climbs out of his throat greedily, and it makes him want to vomit but he swallows that down too. "Where are we going?"

"Oh I can't tell you that quite yet." The driver answers and as he speaks his voice becomes increasing muffled to Jane's ears; the colors on the murky glass begin to blur and he thinks distantly of a crappy water color painting at the results. "Oh, come on Patrick!" The voice continues; irritated and a little sad, "Wakey, Wakey." He chirps; his tone dipping to the under end of the spectrum, becoming irrationally cheerful. "You don't wanna be late for Teresa, do you?"

His head snaps up from where it'd been leaning against his chest; and he swears he can hear the other man smile. "You – leave Lisbon out of this." He snarls, feeling rage bubble up from a well in his heart that never seems to run dry, mixing in with the heightened way his emotions are acting due to whatever drug is throbbing through his veins at the moment.

"Or what?" He can hear the bastard's smile turn to a grin. "Or what, what will you do Patrick? You're a bit tied up at the moment and I'm sure you've accepted the fact that by us meeting again my only intention is that I'm going to kill you. So, you'll be dead, who's gonna stop me from getting to Teresa Lisbon?" He _purrs_ her name; and the need to vomit only grows, making its way into his chest; carving out a home, but he chokes it down and tries to sink the house with a tidal storm of rage.

He instead focuses on the fact of what this person in the front seat has just confirmed what he had already guessed; he's Red John. (Instead of the need to empty the contents in his stomach.)

He's in a car, being driven to an unknown destination by Red John.

The info sinks in slowly; and it drags down turmoil of emotions with it, most of which is simply rage; and the particular sadness so deep that's its only ever been reserved for Lisbon, because he knows that she'll be the one to find him, to find his body; but at least he isn't hopeful that she'll find him in _time_; to stop him from being killed because being that hopeful would be pointless.

"If you're planning to kill me you must have something big in mind for yourself, and really by the way, why not give me a fair chance?" He asks, wiggling his hands behind his back for empathies, ignoring and trying not to cringe at the dried blood which crackles and the fresh that smears on the base of his hands.

Red John is silent for a few seconds; humming softly before he speaks, cutting the tune to an abrupt halt. "You really needn't worry about me Patrick and I gave you a fair chance when I jumped you and you failed to fight back."

"I fought back!"

Red John sighs, sounding almost like a disappointed parent. "Pathetically too," He pauses and a soft click is heard, then static fills the car; Jane jumps slightly at the noise; but within seconds it clears and music flows through the speakers, clear and crisp. "You don't mind do you?" Red John asks and then he laughs softly to himself, "Of course you don't."

Their conversation all but ends there and Jane would be lying if he said he wasn't trying to get out of his binds, and failing, at the task; judging by the pain shooting up his finger tips from his fingernails and how his binds aren't getting any looser. "Where are we going?" He asks as one song, a soft piano piece, comes to an end.

"It's useless to try and escape, so I'd suggest you stop trying."

"Where are we going?"

"Always so persistent, that's what I loved about you."

"Loved? I'm not dead yet." He says, drawing out the words while a scene plays in the back of his mind; _it's really kind of a love, he has for you. _Bret Stiles chimes.

He watches through the murky glass as Red John's shoulders slump and hears him sigh, "No you're not sadly, but you soon will be."

"Where are we going?" He asks again and Red John sighs once more; though it comes out a rather aggravated huff rather than a sigh.

"If you can't be patient and you _must _know, we're going to an airport." He frowns and instantly begins flipping through possibilities in his mind, ignoring the way his thumb's fingernail skids uselessly across the rope and skins across his opposing wrist on his other arm, making a small cut on the skin as it goes, a preview of what it is to come; When Red John speaks he puts a stop to about 50 ideas that had been burning into existence in the storm and chaos his mind was creating. "Don't worry though; we're not getting on a plane. I won't take you from your new home."

He can't help but snort at that, "And that's supposed to be comforting?" He spits out; knowing that he's testing his luck, that he really shouldn't be speaking like that to a serial killer; but this, is the man who killed the first home he ever had in his life and he knows he's going to die, so he hasn't got much to lose.

"Well, yes, think of it this way Patrick. It would be rather hard for Teresa to find you if I took your body out of California." Jane swallows again at those words; rage and sorrow fight for dominant inside his chest, she's truly going to be the one to find his body, and he can't do anything to stop that; he's bringing the end of her world if he's honest with himself (which he's never really been), just like he knew he always would.

"So why are we going to an airport?" He asks; clearly changing the topic, and later cursing himself for his voice cracking mid sentence; and rage wins the battle because of it.

Red John hums softly along to the piano piece playing in the background on the radio. Jane watches as the man smiles, turning and glancing over his shoulder to look at him; he chooses to ignore the way the tempo of his heart increases with the movement. "Well, it seems fitting. You're leaving this word, planes are meant for leaving places, but then again it's not really an airport such as a parking lot _for_ an airport." His smile grows, "I reserved you a spot."

"You've had this planned for a while then?" He asks.

"It's your own personal highway to hell." Red John continues, ignoring his question. "Although, you don't really believe in that stuff do you? Then again neither do I."

"You planned this?" Jane asks, rephrasing his earlier question and ignoring Red John's.

"Oh don't feel bad, Patrick. I didn't put out any signs or singles that I was going to do this to you, so you can relax in the knowledge that there is nothing you could have done to prevent this, it just simply had to happen this way. It's not your fault you didn't see this coming."

_Just like I didn't see my family's death coming?_

"Now you shouldn't think that way." Red John says; and he ignores it, he's had so many people tell him his family's death was not his fault, that he couldn't predict the actions of a serial killer, and only one person who's said it to him in the past decade has mattered to him, he begun to believe the statement, that maybe it wasn't his fault and the only person who could ever do that is obvious; Teresa Lisbon.

Silence takes hold of their conversation after that, Jane sinks into the seat he's laying on and his thumb rubs across the small incision he managed to make in the rope, he shifts and rubs his thumb across the palm of his right hand; he's almost surprised by the amount of blood that dollops onto the skin as he drags it across.

"_And now,"_ Speaks a woman on the radio; Jane jumps at it; a new voice, creating another red stroke across his already irritated skin (which is so close to matching the color of his blood because of it). He sinks back to the seat once he realizes the woman is just reporting the news. "_Here's Extreme with More Than Words."_ Her tone is too bubbly; it's rich and happy, almost soothing (it seems like all radio people have that same voice, you can almost never tell woman on the radio apart because of it), but he can tell she's dead on the inside.

He bets she's going through a ruff divorce.

Or just lost her sister to something.

Probably cancer.

The familiar tune begins to bleed in through the speakers; crisp and clear as any of the other songs before it, but this one means something too him.

_She'd been in the middle of telling him off for saying she'd give Rigsby Monday off; and he'd seen the signs rather quickly, her gaze had floated towards the ceiling, she'd become distracted rather quickly and he noticed the faint blush crawling up her neck and onto her cheeks. She was no longer focusing on his words as he began to state how it put him in an awkward situation; but she's already forgotten the petty lie. _

"_I used to love this song," She whispers softly; probably more to herself than him; relishing in the memories connected to it; one of the few good ones from her childhood. He hears the confession none the less; and he'd already known this was her favorite song, not by her telling him but instead her reaction to it, the way she began to unconsciously shuffle in her spot and blush. _

_That's when something similar to hope blossomed; watching her, and even though he wished he didn't feel the emotion spreading across his chest, it did anyway and began to build itself a home. "So obviously you wanna dance." He states and her head snaps up to look at him; and he's got his answer, but she still denies it._

"_With you?" She asks with fake disgust and true shock, eyebrows rising slightly; as if the idea was insane, but he can see the smirk curling on the edges of her lips. "No." _

_He smiles at that, gesturing with his hands to himself and then to the dance floor, "Come on," He purrs. "You can pretend I'm that mean cold hearted guy you used to warship from affair but never talk too," He sticks his hands back in his pockets and rocks back and forth on his heels, he was shooting in the dark with that comment about cold hearted guys but he's got a feeling that it'll work._

_And it does._

_He can see her last strand against it crumble when she glances away from him, back down to the floor, the smile on her lips becoming genuine; her blush deepens just a bit, and he swears that he can feel the happiness rolling off in waves from her. "No funny business." She tells him, turning towards the dance floor._

_He reaches up and takes hold of her hand; noting with amusement how her entire hand curls around his index finger; it makes him smile, he stops a few feet in and spots the smile that has grown on her face. He grabs her other hand and raises it; pulling her into his arms and against his chest, he hesitates for the briefest of moments about laying his hand on her hip. _

_He has a feeling that she'd fall the whole thing off if he did, so he instead settles for a arm curled around her back and tries not to pull her a little bit closer; his smile comes back to life for a moment when he notices how his hand nearly covers the entire top section of her shoulders, and it dies slowly, painlessly, as he takes the first step. _

_He turns them slowly, and tries to ignore the way how she fits so nicely against him; her hips a few inches below his own, her head comfortably resting against his jaw, her hand curled around his shoulder; although it slides a bit as they turn and nestles against the top section of his back. He notices soon enough that he doesn't have to worry about stepping on her toes; she's always a step ahead or a step behind._

_He takes to think about all of this and then he speaks._

"_Trumpet?" His tone is light. _

"_No," She chirps, the word coming out on a sigh as she leans a bit more into him; he'd bet she's closing her eyes now, letting herself relax – not completely, but relax still. _

_She'd been so solid against him that night; something he could hold onto. _

"Does this song mean something to you?" Red John asks, as if they were old men sitting at a bar; talking about long dead wives, relishing in the good memories of them; and as he speaks he's shattering the moment he'd been reliving a few seconds before.

He doesn't answer and like the supposed good friend Red John turns the radio up; the song chirps for a moment, clicking with static before the melody and lyrics continue, as perfect as before, but just a bit louder.

And then the car spins; and he flies forward, smacking fiercely against the seats in front of him; the small compartment holding useless things slotted between the driver's seat and the one next to it digs in painfully into his stomach; knocking the air from his lungs within seconds of the impact.

He's shoved back into his row of seats just as hard as the car turns a complete 90 degrees, counter clockwise. He's still trying to get his breath back; gasping painfully, normally he'd have it under control by now but whatever drug Red John's put in his system is slamming and cutting off any attempt at biofeedback.

He's so focused on breathing that he doesn't hear the serial killer in question pop open his door and step out, walk around and open the door at his feet; in fact, all he can hear is the song blaring by his ears; although in reality it's a soft background noise and that it's his mind that makes it seem so loud. He swallows and squints at the fresh light bleeding in through his door; most of it blocked by the lurking silhouette, that's what brings him back to his senses; the face of Red John.

He feels his mouth drop open; the air leave his lungs, his pulse dies for a moment as all he's stride to find and kill for the last decade stands before him, the devil himself; creator of the demons he now carries.

"Oh, come now Patrick." Red John purrs softly; looking rather pleased with himself; the cat has the mouse in the corner once more. "You can't be that surprised." He pauses for a moment, waiting for Jane's answer; but all he can do is swallow, and try to stop his breathing from coming out desperate gasps; he wants to go out with his pride in tact after all.

Jane doesn't answer so Red John continues. "I know you can't be genially surprised, or at least I truly hope you aren't. Either way I'm gonna guess it's the drugs in your system." He smiles; his teeth glinting in the sunlight. "Strong stuff, let me tell you." He shifts and leans against the car, propping his elbow up on the frame, and resting his head against his fist. "Cost likes Hell though, but, it's all worth it in the end." He chirps.

He watches Jane for a few moments; eyes glossed over with a careful consideration. "You know -" He begins to say.

"No." Jane snaps, cutting him off and Red John shakes his head, making a small _tsk_ sound; made from disappointment and just a hint of rage, the kind of rage that causes you to kill without mercy, the kind that creates a serial killer.

"Alright, if you truly feel that way." He speaks and his tone is a new sort of calm, like he's finally accepted it too; that Jane is going to die here.

Jane wishes he could kick the man; but he can't due to the way his feet and legs are tingling.

He can't move; he's facing the man who killed his wife and child, who's taken so many lives and he's useless to do anything.

He knows who Red John is and he'll be taking that knowledge to the grave.

He's so consumed in these thoughts that he doesn't notice Red John has moved till he's looming above him; his breath brushing against his cheeks and chin. "My oh my, you keep drifting off. What's got you so deep in thought, Patrick?"

He opens his mouth to say a response and that's when he feels the blade pressed against his right bicep; he stiffens, the muscles in his arm go taunt, painfully taunt, and the prickles zap through his nerve system like needles, waking the arm up and he knows he shouldn't move; that it will only make the pain worse, but as he presses his head against the bottom of his deathbed, he can't help it, his arm twitches just barely and the slow anguish that will, and only could, be death starts.

He tries to stop his strangled shout as the blade tears across his bicep, going deep enough to cut, although he hopes it only skims, the surface of his Musculocutaneous nerve. He realizes rather quickly that trying to muffle the sound will only make matters worse; he notices this at the sharp pain in his nose when he inhales swiftly; so he unlocks his jaw and let's Red John win.

He screams; the sound ragged and from the pit of his chest, sounding like an animal and completely inhuman, with the hint of something metallic breaking; but he supposes that the last may as well be his heart.

The blood is warm and slick as it flows out from the incision, and within seconds he finds himself calculating how long he can survive with a wound like that; and then with a cold and sudden realization, he knows that he will be doing that after every wound he receives, trying to figure out how much longer he has left in a rush; like how a child almost done with their homework rushes through the last few questions because they can taste the freedom of having done it all and completing the tasks assigned to them.

The blood laps and presses his suit to the skin of his arm and does nothing to stop it's flow; instead it only makes it worse, the cut stings like someone's holding a flame too it and the worst part is he can't jerk away from its source; because the candle that holds the flame is him.

He thinks distantly he might be hyperventilating.

That thought grounds him, and makes him notice the small pressure just at the base of the cut.

Red John is holding a small Dixie cup to the wound, collecting the blood as it slips out; he notices Jane's attempts to get a better look and smiles to himself. "Sorry for any inconvience but I'll need this." He draws the cup away once it's filled to the brim, taking extra care to run it across the wound as he goes, which increases the flame as the fabric is pushed in the opposite direction against it; and the paper like material that creates the rim skims along it; the unnatural texture adding another layer to his Hell. "Probably more than you will." He continues, talking over Jane's groans.

Jane swallows and waits for the next slice to come but it doesn't; instead he's blessed with the sight of death in human form retreating, light dances behind him; almost a faint yellow color; the kind of color you get from incredibly fresh daffodils and sunflowers.

"You –"He swallows again, and inhales through his nose along with his mouth in a desperate need for oxygen (which turns out to be a bad idea seconds later when blood floods his mouth) "What are you waiting for?" He asks, rephrasing his original question. Red John shifts in the sunlight and his silhouette is casted with a silver lining, darkness covering and developing his features. "It was never going to be the end of a blade for you, Patrick." He says, leaning against the frame of the car like he had before, the blade in question (which notes is a Linoleum knife, although he already knew that because he could tell how it was structured and what brand it was when it was slicing through his arm and across his nerve. Curved blades and straight ones have a very different way when it comes to cutting into flesh) is dangling loosely from his grip in his other hand; blood dripping along the edge.

"Oh, no." He continues, just as calm; the humor which he had come to accept as normal when talking to Red John gone from his tone completely. He drops the blade and it feels like an eternity has passed before Jane hears it crash and clatter on the pavement. The hand that had been holding the blade reaches inside his blazer, smearing a sharp red across the pure white dress shirt; but he ignores it completely and pulls a gun from his inside pocket.

"No, I personally always thought it was going to be the barrel of a gun that brought your demise." He aims the gun at him; but the object is blurred and dissertating, it's a smudge of gray; almost like a streak of charcoal before him, on the canvas of something so much more; but Jane knows that it is probably not the light causing the gun to look like that, but rather because he's so close to passing out from blood loss.

For a moment he worries about the fact that he can't see the brand of it; but then he realizes the thought is pointless because soon enough its bullet will be in his head, and he CBI will find out what kind of gun was used when they pull it out and send it to forensics.

"Any last words, Patrick?" Red John asks; and he has no doubt in his mind that this is Red John and not some piss poor excuse of a disciple, or a wanna-be.

He grins; despite the pain blooming in his arm and spreading across his neck and chest, despite the fact he's on deaths door and will _never_ see the woman he loves again, that he never got to see his family avenged, and that he knows there is nothing waiting for him after this; no sweet lie of a afterlife with his wife and daughter; and he's alright with all of it because he knows one thing; and so despite the fact that he dies today, he grins and faces the inedible death before him with laughter in his voice.

"Yes, I do actually, don't worry, they'll catch you soon enough." His smile grows as his mind flicks through memories of Lisbon; she's smart enough to follow the trails he's left behind, she knows the names in his notebook; and her team, her team is brilliant and they'll get the job done.

They'll just have to be amazing without him and he knows that they can be, and how they can also be so much more than that; they'll be the team that catches Red John. The team that avenges _him_ and everyone else who was slaughtered by the madman.

He laughs and then continues, "I have no doubt of it." And his grace, in his final moments, is getting to watch the pure hatred wash over Red John's face; almost a look of defeat for the man given how he wears it.

And then the gun fires.

* * * * * * * *

She's sitting in her office, filling out a suspect report for the case they'd just receive when her phone rings, she shifts her pen to her other hand and scans over the paper before her as she picks it up with her now free hand on the beginning of the second ring.

"Agent Lisbon." She says, not removing her eyes from the name scribbled down in her own hand writing.

She frowns when the first three seconds tick by with a simple silence, she's about to hang up when she begins to hear a laugh; wheezy at first; the kind of wheeze a person gets when they've laughed so hard they've got tears in the corners of their eyes and they can't catch their breath. The wheeze gives birth to a light chuckle which dies and becomes a deep throated laugh, which continues on; changing pitch as lives.

The laughter stops abruptly and enough time has passed for the blood in her veins to run cold; for her palms to become sweaty and for her stomach to tie itself in knots painful enough that would have made her double over if she hadn't already been sitting.

"You may be able to save him if you hurry." The caller says; his voice incredibly high, and still a bit wheezy. She blinks and finds her heart in her throat at those words; it threatens to choke and smother her but she shoves past it; finding rage from somewhere she didn't know she had.

"Where are you?" She demands; not growling or snarling the words, but instead keeping them crisp and clean and sharp, keeping the emotion out of her voice with the exception of hatred; Jane's done it enough times around her for her to pick the trick up.

"Oh," He purrs. "You're not even curious who I am, Agent Lisbon?" He asks, sounding almost disappointed; she imagines he's pouting now, even if she can't see him.

"Where's Jane?" She asks; her vision blurring out, she wraps her hand around the arm of her chair to keep herself from shaking, although it does little good.

Surprisingly, he tells her, gives her the address and everything; even the details she doesn't want and enough that will undoubtedly fuel her nightmares for the oncoming years.

"I'd give him about ten; maybe seven minutes till he bleeds out, you may want to hurry." And then the line goes dead.

But she'd already been up and moving out of her chair before it cut out, she doesn't even bother to put it back in its cradle; doesn't bother to grab her jacket, she just runs straight for the bullpen.

"He's got Jane."

She blurts as soon as she steps foot into the bullpen, loud enough and with enough emotion that everyone looks up; not just her team, some stare at her in confusion while others get a cold look of realization on their faces. She inhales and wishes her heart would stop trying to beat out of her chest; it's a physical pain now, what she's feeling, but she has to ignore it. She rattles off the address without much emotion, which she's thankful for, and she doesn't even wait for a response; just turns and goes, running for the elevator.

Because no one has to ask who _he _is.

Her team follows, and others as well; with the small exception of them being they aren't on her team; but care deeply for the consultant, find his antics, when they are not disruptive, amusing and a small highlight in their day.

* * * Surprisingly, he doesn't get a bullet in his head.

Ironically; he gets it in his heart instead.

Red John fires the gun; which is unbelievably loud; he thinks distantly of a clap of thunder, and lightening comes when the bullet hits him, he can count the seconds between the gunshots and when it rips up his flesh on one hand, panic surprisingly makes a comeback when it rips at the fabric of his suit and destroys it completely and then promptly digs into his chest.

Red John is gone by the time the bullet has nudged its way in and made a home in his heart.

Literally.

He squirms against the leather seat and his hands flutter uselessly against his lower back, squirming only makes it worse; he watches in horror as blood bubbles up from the wound in a rush and he plops back down; going completely still, trying to focus on his breathing and slowing his heart rate; he chooses to ignore the fact pain is gone from his right arm, because he knows adrenalin is what has stitched it temporarily back together, and when he can feel it again; it'll be worse than before. That's when the car door slams shut and the light vanishes all together; leaving behind a murky echo of itself; and the small space around him darkens incredibly, colors reverting to their opposites and what would be their original shades to him; going from very light shades to the darkest ones. He struggles to lift his head and watches as a shadow washes over him as Red John paints the smiley face onto the car window; it remains after his silhouette is gone; in some places the car is now tinted with a dark red hue.

He lets his head fall back against the bottom of the seat again then and only then does he breathe; wincing at the pain it brings and gags half way through exhaling, which results in a quick attack of gasps and some more sputtering. He sucks in a breath mid way and cuts off his sputtering; he does that several times; sucking in big breaths and not letting them out, ignoring the metallic taste that swiftly paints his mouth, mixing with his saliva.

He exhales slowly and this time manages to regain some sort of control; it still hurts but he manages not to risk choking himself when he inhales in the following second. He focuses for nearly two minutes, and no more because he can't spear the time, on his breathing and once he's far away from agony as he can get; which truly isn't that far, he allows himself to think, to figure out how much more time he has and what he can do with it.

That's when he realizes what's playing in the background.

_Saying I love you_ _Is not the words I want to hear from you_ _It's not that I want you _ _Not to say, but if you only knew_ _How easy it would be to show me how you feel_ _More than words is all you have to do to make it real_ _Then you wouldn't have to say that you love me_ '_Cause I'd already know_

He sucks in a breath; ignoring the Hell it brings and instead focuses on the tears that spring in his eyes as he realizes with horror what Red John's final act has been; the man undoubtly knew what this song was a trigger for, given that it was a love song and how Jane had let himself slip into the memory in favor of the reality surrounding him; choosing a memory over the man who had killed his family, now that must be a very precious one.

One that he would now destroy for both Jane and Lisbon; because Jane knows now when Lisbon first see's his deathbed she'll hear the song; muffled by the frame of the car and when she opens the door it will be so much clearer, she'll recognize it and then see him; that is something that will become forever etched into her mind, destroying and ruling over the place the memory of them dancing held in her mind.

He exhales slowly, running his tongue across his lips, wanting desperately to spit and get rid of the sour taste in his mouth; but he can't, moving now will only make it worse.

He pauses, realizing of something new slowly sinking in and it pushes him to lift his head once more.

_What else does he have to lose?_

He scrunches and squirms, pushing against the seat with his hands; grinding his teeth and eventually screaming at the pain caused when by his movements; the way his chest aches so deeply he wants to vomit, at the way his arm feels like it's being split in two and how the ropes burn into his wrist and ankles.

His chest is heaving as he leans against the seat, sitting upright now; he looks out the window, at the shadowed surface of the smiley face and that sight is what causes the small flicker of strength to be reignited somewhere deep inside and with a lungs full of air he raises his legs and kicks the door; he pauses after, slamming onto the bottom of the seat with the momentum, gasping for breath, he waits about half a second before kicking again.

And again.

And again.

And again.

* * * * Her team files into one of the CBI vehicles and others follow, sirens blaring as they pull onto the roads; the address and situation passes around like office gossip, either it be in person or over phone; everyone knows within the next five minutes what's going on.

On her way out however she had struggled not to punch a man who snipped, "_He had it coming, the guy's a jackass."_ To a coworker when she walked by; however they had grown silent in her wake and she had sworn she had heard the coworker who had remained silent, whisper;

"_Isn't that his girlfriend?"_

* * * On the main road the first three minutes tick by with a thick silence; with the exception of ripping velcro as Lisbon's team pulls on their bullet proof vests.

"Boss," Grace says; gesturing to the one free vest in her lap.

"I'll put it on when we get there." She says; and they all know it's a lie but they don't say anything, no one says anything till Lisbon speaks again; "Cho I need you to call a ambulance and inform them of the situation and address –"

"Already did." Her second in command deadpans, she nods; relief flooding her system.

"Van Pelt –"She begins

"I've already got people back on head quarters attempting to trace the location of where the call originated from." She nods; more relief, but she still can't relax; which is unsurprising, she knows she won't be able to till she see's Jane, even though her stomach's filled to its led with dread she doubts seeing him will bring any relief; in fact, it will probably bring everything but.

****

As they make one of the final turns onto the long stretch of road leading to the air port enough tension has gathered and built up in the car to kill someone however thankfully it never gets that far because Lisbon presses on the gas and the car picks up speed; skipping slightly as it does.

She pulls into the airport going far over the speed limit but no one says a word; their hands curling on the edges of their seats, and the car skips again when Lisbon's grip slips on the wheel when a black Volvo comes into view and one thing because very obvious; the sharp red dripping smiley face on wind shield of the passenger door.

The car skips a third time before coming to a screeching halt as she slams on the breaks and flings open the door, "Boss!" She hears Van Pelt shout, Rigsby and Cho remaining gracefully silent as they jump out and follow in her wake.

She runs the short distant from her vehicle to the Volvo and with every step her heart slams harder in her chest and she worries about losing her lunch, a cold sweat passing over her as she reaches the side of the door.

She hesitates, just for a moment; listening to the sound of the ambulance's siren fill the air as it pulls in, to the sound of the other CBI vehicles, to the sound of doors opening and slamming shut; the awkward silence that follows as those who had tagged along slowly realize that they aren't needed.

She stares at the red smiley face directly in front of her; watching a trickle of Jane's blood slides down from the eye; and she can hear something playing inside the car, it's muffled to her ears and she can't bring herself to care and that's when she hears a dull thump; directly below where her knees are located but from the inside of the car, it's followed by another one and that's what causes her to yank the door open, even though she knows she isn't prepared for the inedible sight inside.

And she was right.

Jane's body lay pressed in the small space against the middle row a seats and the drivers, he was tilted forward, out of view; the closest thing to her was his feet, which she could see were bleeding; and after a moment of staring it clicked in her mind that they were bleeding because of the ropes tied around his ankles. She leaned in, gripping the frame of the car and climbing along the middle row of seats; and that's when the sent hit her.

Thick and murky; metallic almost, it's rolling off him in waves, along with the strong scent of vomit, and when she gets close enough she see's that his head is resting a few inches from a puddle of it; which happens to be mixed with blood, slowly dripping from his lips; she takes in the sight and realizes he used the last amount of strength he had to make sure he wasn't lying in his own vomit; that's Jane, making sure he goes out with his pride and grace in check.

She leans in, words falling from her lips; that sound distant to her own ears, like she's underwater and it's all because she's so focused on _him_.

She grips the edge of the seat and presses two fingers against the skin of his neck; her heart rips into pieces from within her chest when the cold of his skin begins to suck the heat out from her fingertips, but she wills and forces herself not to rip her hand back, to take her warmth with her, to lie to herself and pretend that it isn't true because she needs to accept it; that Jane's dead, the sight of his body before her should in force this new reality but it doesn't, it instead does the exact opposite.

Then she feels the pulse flutter underneath her fingers, faint and small but it's there; it provokes her to press harder and he groans softly, and the pulse thumps again. "Cho!" She hollers, "Rigsby!" She yells as she slides down, ignoring as she places her feet in his vomit; instead focusing on wrapping one arm around his left shoulder and gently pushing him up till he's sitting; he sinks against her, whimpers falling from his lips.

"It's alright Jane," She lies; keeping her voice soft and low to make it less obvious when it breaks and how thick it sounds to her own ears. "Everything will be alright." His chest rises in a ragged, uneven pase; like the needle skipping over a record.

"Boss," Rigsby's silhouette covers the beautiful light that had been bleeding into the small place. "The ambulance is here, do you want help moving him?" She's impressed at how Rigsby's voice is in check; even if his face isn't, which happens to be covered in obvious pain and worry.

"I'm gonna need it." She tells him, moving to stand; ignoring the retched sent below her; her hand glides across his right bicep in the movement and that's when he screams.

She freezes and her heart stills in her chest and for a split second she's unsure of what to do, Jane's scream is still ringing in her ears, and it takes her even longer to realize that the sound has been cut off, that he's grinding his jaw together to keep the sound locked up tight; away from her.

She moves slowly, ignoring Rigsby; who stands a few feet away. "Jane." She says softly, trying to decipher how conscious he is, "I'm sorry but this is going to hurt, we have to move you." And as she speaks she notices the little tear in the pocket of his suit, "Rigsby." She speaks again; her tone on edge.

"Yes?" His voice crack and she ignores it.

"Move." And he does; and light floods in once more, casting everything in a pale shade of blue; revealing the blood covering his chest – how, how had she not seen or felt that?

"He shot me –"Jane inhales sharply, his swallow loud in her ears, he gasps again at the end of his sentence; gagging slightly, his chest heaves in the after math, fresh blood trickling from his lips.

"Don't try to talk," She snaps at him, taking a moment to send him a glare; which he see's through one eye, due to how the other is squeezed shut in pain and for a moment she swears she see's love, so much love, in that single blue-green eye and it's gone; replaced by hurt and aguish before he shuts it up tight (now a matching set for its companion) and grinds his teeth a bit more, all of this happening in the few moments before she speaks again. "Get a god damn gurney, and I'm so sorry Jane – Rigsby help me move him." She moves, feet sliding against the blood slick floor and pushes, half picks up the man, heading for the door.

Rigsby meets her half way; moving to take Jane from under his arms to get him out of the small car, only to stop at the last second. "Boss –"He begins to say, but Lisbon cuts him off.

"Whatever injury it is, we'll let the paramedic's take care of it, for now just move." Her voice cracks, but she ignores it; she seems to be ignoring a lot of things, she's too focused on going through the motions.

"But –"Rigsby attempts to speak; looking at the deep slice on Jane's arm.

"Shut up and listen to her, Wayne. Just grab my arm." Jane spits, from where he leans against Lisbon.

"Jane if anyone should be shutting up, it's you!" Lisbon snarls, glaring at him; her eyes glossy for a moment, before moving him towards Rigsby, who does what was requested of him, despite Jane's startled shout of pain and as they exit the vehicle the paramedics descend, grabbing him and somehow managing to get him onto the gurney; and running off to the ambulance, and she's on his heels; or was, but something stops her.

_What would you do if my heart was torn in two__  
More than words to show you feel__  
That your love for me is real__  
What would you say if I took those words away__  
Then you couldn't make things new__  
Just by saying I love you_

She stands still; her feet wavering and unsteady below her, and she fears for a moment that she's going to faint; as she focuses everything she has on that song, ignoring the broken and shattered world around her, just for a moment as she listens to the words.

"Boss!" It's Van Pelt.

"Boss!" The Agent snaps again, and she suddenly feels a hand on her shoulder and the world blooms back into focus, the cracks slam together and hold onto each other; and she's staring into the fiery eyes off one of her closest friends. She swallows down anything she may be feeling, but allows herself one grace before she shoves it all down completely.

"We – I danced to this song with him." She says softly, letting herself to feel relief; that he's alive, and that they found him, that she didn't have to see the inedible horror of him laying sliced up underneath a red smiley face, at least, for now.

"I know, and he needs you now." Van Pelt says in return, her voice just has low and soft; comfort bleeding into her tone; like how a mother would speak to a child after they have a nightmare, along with that kind of understanding that a woman only gets when she has seen the man she loves in physical pain as well.

Lisbon nods, breathing in the moist air around them; letting her eyes gloss over once more because she knows it will be quite some time till she can cry, she blinks and the gloss is gone and she tampers down her emotions by focusing on one thing – they found him, and he's _alive_ and he's _safe_.

He's safe.

She takes a step, Grace's hand remains on her shoulder and for that she's thankful, she wants to offer a smile to her friend but she can't find it within her to do so, so instead she lays a hand on top of hers and takes another step; ready to walk from Hell that is the black Volvo and into Heaven; which is found in the red and white ambulance about twenty feet away.

And that's when the car behind them burst into flames; one last attempt to stop them from leaving, the final demon; sent by the devil himself.

He's safe now.

But she sure isn't.

* * * * * * The next few minutes happen as though she isn't in her body; she'd heard the explosion, felt the flames lick at her back, at her ankles; at her hair, felt Grace's hand vanish from her shoulder, felt the fear and horror at the lost of the steady weight; heard the shouts of her team's own horror and the next thing she knew she was laying on the ground with the blurry vision of a man in white above her.

The sounds blur and mesh together and make it as though she's underwater; and they're on the surface, or in the air; miles and miles from where she is, trapped underneath the water at the bottom of the ocean.

"God?" She asks, it's the first thing that comes to mind at the blurred out figure, it bubbles to her lips and she can't stop it as it comes out on an exhale.

"Agent Lisbon!" God responds, his tone harsh and filled with concern and urgency; and that's enough the drag her from the waves and onto the beach.

The paramedic shakes her once more; and he blooms into focus, distantly she thinks off the not-so-new hot guy in the mail room, she wonders if this is his brother. He shakes her again and says her name once more and her ears ring in the aftermath, she inhales and her lungs scream in protest.

He shifts, pulling her up; she'd been lying on the ground and hadn't even realized it, her legs feel like jelly underneath her and her back and calves are screaming with the fierce sort of pain that forces her to think about doubling over and never move again in hopes to dim it.

He hooks her left arm around his shoulders and holds onto her wrist in a tight grip, the other arm wrapping around her waist and settling just below her last rib; she's rather surprised by the courtesy in his touch. He then begins walking; and this time she nearly doubles over, her legs scream in pain and she struggles to stay upright. "I'm sorry," He apologizes, "But we need to hurry –"And as he speaks she hears another man holler;

"_Do we need a gurney for her too?"_

_Gurney_; that's what it takes for the fog in her mind to clear and lift, for her to snap upright and straighten out her steps, still leaning against the paramedic, even though she doesn't want to; but she knows cooperation is the best thing at the moment. "You can pick up the pase." She says and within seconds she's stepping into the back of the ambulance and sliding in next to Grace; Cho and Rigsby sitting across from them, and Jane in the middle; a blanket tossed around his legs, which are strapped down and one paramedic hovers on his left side; holding a bandage to his chest (his shirt is unbuttoned and the vest is long gone, a bloody heap in the far front left corner, near Cho's foot) while the other wraps a thick gauze around his bicep, his chest rises slowly in a even pace; his eyes are shut and a oxygen mask rests on his jaw.

Grace has a red angry smudge on the left side of her forehead; a few small cuts doting across her lips, and chin; scrapes on her neck but other than that she appears physically fine, she holds wad of bandages to her left forearm.

Relief fills Lisbon's chest and she focuses on Grace for a moment, who catches her gaze and swallows, and behind them the ambulance's doors slam shut (she doesn't even bother to send a second glance out the small window to the car's remains in flames about twenty feet away) and the vehicle purrs as it drives away; sirens wailing; "Boss you're –"She begins to say.

"I'm fine, are you alright?"

Grace nods; with a look of concern etched into her features; jumping slightly as the ambulance shakes as it pulls back onto the main roads. "Nothing serious," she says with a small smile. "Just some scrapes and bruises."

She wants to apologize for standing still like a idiot in the first place; if she had moved her ass than Grace wouldn't have been caught in the explosion in the first place.

"Now Boss," She's speaking again, so Lisbon draws herself away from her thoughts and focuses her attention on the red headed woman. "You should really get yourself checked out." Her tone is pleading; the small thankful smile has dropped from her face; there's an edge in her gaze that states she won't take no for a answer.

"I'm fine." Lisbon answers, glancing at the man lying still in the center of the ambulance.

"No you're not." Cho deadpans from where he sits; his tone careful, impassive; but when he speaks again there's the tiniest hint of emotion, concern and understanding; how he sounds like the latter one, she doesn't know; but she's got a few guesses (most of them probably have sprouted from long gone experiences he had with Summer Edgecombe). "You've got first degree burns in multiple spots, deep incisions in multiple places, that will need stitches, including one that will probably need staples on your left ankle –" at the mention of the wound, it begins to burn softly; "a mild concussion," and he doesn't even stutter, doesn't blink at the next statement as he says it. "And Jane is lying before you with a bullet in his chest and a nearly severed arm."

Tears burn at the edges of her eyes when he finishes speaking and she swallows; ignoring the physical pain but refusing to feed the emotion pain. "Well, we're on our way to a hospital; I'll get patched up there." As she speaks she holds eye contact with Cho, only looking away as she finishes speaking; focusing on Jane's face, and how peaceful he looks, almost asleep (although she knows both are lies, he never sleeps, not really).

His eyes flutter and she goes rigid in her seat; her fingers wrapping tightly around the ice cold metal she's sitting on, and his eyes continue to peel open; sharp blue-green becoming visible; along with the small red veins in the whites of his eyes. He stares at the ceiling for a few moments, and then slowly his gaze drops, rolling to Cho, and then Rigsby; then Grace, where they go slightly wide, and then to Lisbon; where he then begins to squirm slightly in the gurney and his eyes gloss over with the movement, but remained focus on her.

She carefully rises, keeping eye contact with him and steps past Grace, taking the place of the long gone paramedic (who'd left once she wrapped his bicep and sat in the chair about two feet away) and kneels down, and his eyes strain to keep her in his field of vision.

"Relax." She tells him softly, and he doesn't of course; her hands curl into tight fists in her lap. "Jane," She continues, "I'm fine." Her tone is stern, "Now, I won't be if you don't relax." She watches as his eyes re-gloss and his pupils dilate and shrink; but slowly he sinks into the gurney. She offers him a small smile, and whispers a thanks; but the smile dies when he begins to move his left hand; it rises towards the oxygen mask and she beats him too it; removing the mask and setting it carefully on his chin; he sucks in a breath and clears his throat.

* * * * The pain burrowing in his chest like a field mouse in a corn field has faded; gone into a long hibernation; and he's ever so thankful for it, though any sort of thanks vanishes at the sight of Lisbon, covered in bruises and scrapes and burns; and he fears that if he looks away from her as she rises from her seat to come closer that she'll vanish, fall over; die. So he doesn't look away, but he does as she requests to make sure she doesn't do any of the things that he's worried about; he relaxes for her sake.

His mind switches into auto pilot from there, and suddenly he's lifting a hand to remove the oxygen mask from his face, but like the angel she is; she does it for him. He takes a moment to revel in the feeling to be free from the plastic that had been digging painfully into his cheeks and then he sucks in a breath; the air is crisp and free of that brumal taste the oxygen from the tank had. He clears his throat and pushes past the metallic taste that washes up and threatens to make him vomit again, that, is an experience he has no wish to repeat anytime soon.

"I know who Red John is –"He states and all gazes in the ambulance (with the exception of the medical staff) focus on him; Lisbon goes rigid, and he can tell she's about to ask him to share the info, and he's about too; it's on the tip of his tongue, the name of the man who killed his wife and child; who slaughtered so many others, that caused so much pain.

But then the field mouse wakes up and it all begins to crash down; the corn begins to die, and the tunnels the mouse had built begin to collapse and the auto pilot in his mind has left the plane; which now has burst into flames and is taking a nose dive for the ground.

He hides the anguish he's feeling from her; he can do that, "Lisbon –"He says – the smoke from the plane plagues his lungs, and soon it'll ignite the corn field and the field mouse will be the death of him.

"I'm right here," She says softly; even though there's urgency in his voice, she's taking time to be careful with him. "Who is it?" She asks this time, and there's a new sort of light in her eyes; hope (for a better future and for ending this nightmare and waking him up from it).

Oh god, he's going to have to watch that light die.

"Lisbon –"He says again; not sure if he already said her name; there's a fog brushing against the horizon of his mind, and he gets the feeling he already did by the look on her face. He sucks in a lung full of air to keep the fog and smoke at bay and ignores the field mouse digging around frantically in his chest; attempting to get out through the already collapsed tunnels.

He knows he has a decision to make in the final moments when the field mouse curls into a tight little ball in the last remaining tunnel and accepts its fate; death. He knows that he can tell her who Red John is, or hold true to the pact he made a long time ago.

_She always comes before Red John._

It's more of a list (a never ending one) than a pact, but anyway he remains true to it.

"I –"He chokes; blood rushing up into his throat, his mouth, sputtering and splashing against his lips with a fierce kind of knocking, and disgusted, he swallows it down and flinches internally because he knows when he opens his mouth to speak again his teeth will be tinted red; he opens his mouth to speak and his terror is confirmed by the look of shock that washes over her face; it brings tears to his eyes. "I love you." He tells her, looking her straight in the eyes; and he watches those tears get reflected into her own eyes.

She blinks, once, twice. Once for the shock of what he's just said, again for the shock that he said _that_instead of telling her the identity of Red John and third for the realization of why he said that instead of telling her the identity of Red John.

She opens her mouth to protest, to poke the field mouse with a stick to wake it back up; and to have it climb out the hole she made with the stick, or to grab hold and let itself be dragged back up to the surface.

She blinks once more as the sound of the weak, much smaller heart monitored gives of the signs that he's coding; and the sharp, quick beeping sound; along with Lisbon's muffled shouts and words of terror are the last thing he hears.

He doesn't have to watch the light die because his eyes have already rolled back into his sockets by then.

* * * * She gapes at him like a fish out of water at those words, well at first it had been because of the fresh coat of blood on his teeth, but then he'd spoken.

"I love you."

It was the first time he'd said it with a 'I', it had taken her a few seconds to get over the initial shock, the confusion that he'd changed the topic to something so unimportant (at the moment) and then realization as to why he changed it; as to why he would change his words, because they would be his dying ones and like the show man he was; he had to go out with a bang that left the audience so stunned it would take them a while to start clapping.

She opens her mouth to tell him not to think like that; that he'll be fine, for him not to be such a jackass by saying that on his supposed death bed.

But she never gets the chance; no, instead she gets to watch those lovely and beautiful blue-green eyes turn white as the roll into the back of his skull, and his body go rigid as it begins to convulse, the small heart monitor in the corner goes crazy; shrieking loudly, and without her knowing it she's somehow shoved aside (or grabbed? Or led?) into her seat and she's watching the horror play out before her.

She listens to the paramedics push drugs into his system (they shout what kind, and how much; described in beautifully long and complicated words), charge his body (his chest lifts and falls with the shock); and she listens to it all through a muffled sort of silence, which she realizes much later is that it was her ears ringing.

The sights before her blur together; into sharp beautiful colors (which he would have loved, he'd always appreciated beauty in such things as the colors you see every day at their greatest; kind of like people, she thinks), and all she can feel is hands grabbing her (none of the pain that's flooding her system, she's too numb for that, she doesn't want to feel it).

The hands are ushering her out of the way as the doors of the ambulance fly open once more; revealing a sharp white light that blurs everything momentarily before it clears, and the paramedics rush by; hollering orders and statistics as they push him away; heading for the emergencies doors.

She stares until he's out of sight; and then she blinks, her eyelashes pull away damp with her own tears.

Her ears make a muffled noise.

"Boss!" The noise shifts, it becomes clear; more pristine, far too sharp for her liking; she wants to cover her ears, shut her eyes, and look away.

"Boss!" But the noise won't let her and she can't do any of those things.

"_Boss!" _He snarls and suddenly she's staring at Cho, who's staring right back, a fierce edge in the light of his eyes; something she thinks, after ten years of knowing him that she'd never seen up until this point, and that she'll probably never see it again.

She blinks, and swallows. "Jane." She says, her eyes flickering away from him in favor of the now shut hospital doors; her tongue is thick in her mouth, almost like cotton, and her throat feels swollen, and as she shuts her lips once more she tastes blood; she bit her tongue hard enough to draw it.

"You need medical attention." Cho states; grabbing her gaze once more and holding onto it with a kind of greed she didn't know he possessed.

She's learning lots of new things about all sorts of people today, things that she never knew.

Like how Jane loves her, and that in her mind; it's been confirmed he never really forgot saying it the first time, that it just wasn't the right time to say it.

She learned the Cho cares more about his team then he lets on; far more than she had suspected.

"But Jane –" Her voice cracks and a small whimper escapes at his name, her throat clogs up and attempts to push out something sharp that hurts enough she may as well be coughing up shards of glass; she wants to cry, but she can't not now; she knows that, it isn't the right time.

He doesn't lie; he doesn't say Jane will be alright, he just repeats his earlier statement. "You need medical attention. We're at the hospital, now let's get you some."

She doesn't know if she should be thankful that he didn't lie, or that she should be even more worried.

"But –"Her lip trembles and the word feels so big; so impossibly big; it almost consumes her, its possibilities, but her team doesn't let it.

Grace grips her shoulder and Lisbon's gaze slowly pulls away from Cho to move to the redheaded woman who she'd grown close enough too to consider her a would-be sister. She expects Grace to lie; but she doesn't, and Rigsby doesn't either as he steps around the trio and climbs from the ambulance; extending both his hands up to her. Which she slowly takes, gripping him tightly and he helps her down, although she doesn't really need help getting down, it'd been a small jump from the ambulance to the ground, that's not what she needed help with.

She needs help with making sure she can stay on her feet long enough to – she doesn't know how long, maybe even for the rest of her life if her life dies; and it will if he does inside those hospital walls.

"Come on," Rigsby says softly, still leading her by the hand to the emergency doors. She feels the looks of concern being exchanged behind her back between Grace and Cho; normally she would have said something, snapped at them to stop worrying and to focus on their jobs.

But it's not normal anymore; normal ends when the four them step through the emergency back doors, which slide open gently and in a rush to accept them into another form of Hell. Cho brushes past her as he goes to fetch a nurse, or intern; he finds a woman in dark blue scrubs and a sharp white lab coat in her arms. This woman's first attempt is to ignore him – she finds it amusing for a moment, knows the feeling; she's trying to get on with her work and do her job and now she's got another man, a complete stranger, in her face requesting, closer to demanding, her to do something else; when she can only do so much, she's only human after all – and then Cho flashes his badge and the humor melts away, along with the color from her face as she gives a brisk nod, looking around and eventually spotting the trio in question after a few seconds.

As she gets closer her features come into view, her skin is pale at the moment; with the faintest echo of pink her cheeks, small brown eyes and long curly red hair. Her pace quickens; and develops into a run as she gets closer; Cho has to pick up his pace to follow.

"Oh God," She says, her arms fluttering to grip Lisbon's elbows; her eyes scanning over her entire form, taking in the wounds, but at the last moment she stops herself from taking hold of the woman. She instead spins around, yelling over her shoulder when she speaks again. "Christina!" She yells, and the younger Asian woman who'd been about to run by stops, spins around; she's dressed in the same clothing as the doctor before them with the exception of a scrub cap.

"What, Kepner?" The woman snaps, clearly frustrated and agitated, she shifts in her spot, ready to dash at a moment's notice; run off and save some lives.

"Where's the closest free room?" The newly named Dr. Kepner asks, and the woman, Christina flushes; her lip curling in disgust, a thick lock of curly black hair falls from her scrub cap, she angrily tucks it back in.

"I don't know! You know better than to ask me! Go ask a nurse, I'm busy, they just brought in a trauma patient, shot in the heart and I need to _go_, if he's gonna have any chance of surviving." She growls; more color drifting up into her face with every word.

At the words _shot in the heart_ the blood runs cold in her veins (she wants to tell the woman to go, run off and give the man a chance of surviving, but for whatever reason, she can't open her mouth); but she forces it to melt as a few inches in front of her Cho flashes his badge, the woman's eyes flicker to it and then back to Dr. Kepner; she doesn't pale, instead, her face gains more color and she becomes visibly flustered; she gives a audible growl and spits out, "Room 549 – no, hold on, 541, fifth floor." And with it she rushes into the nearest room, and Lisbon catches the glance of what's going on behind the half opened blinds.

She watches as the doctor's hands flutter over the unmoving form of Patrick Jane; his shirt is ripped open; to about half way, revealing the mostly smooth and muscled skin of his chest, with the exception of the very obvious bullet wound in the center of it all, though it's closer to the left; she watches as someone shoves some papers in Christina's direction, she scans over them and shoves them into someone else's arms.

"Alright, let's go." Dr. Kepner chirps, this time placing a gentle hand on Lisbon's elbow; Lisbon doesn't move, instead she remains firmly in her spot, watching carefully as Christina snaps something to a man with ginger hair, who replies with visible aggression; she spins around, away from him and says something to a man in light blue scrubs, who nod frantically.

"Hold on," She breathes; her eyes scanning what she can see, and she eventually finds it after what feels like a life time; a proper heart monitor; all the statistics written out for her to see, the numbers flash and the lines remain eerily still; and her heart drops to her stomach.

"Ma'am we should really go," She looks in the direction of Lisbon's gaze. "You really shouldn't watch this –" Cho flashes his badge again and from the edge of her vision Dr. Kepner gets visibly flustered, like her companion had earlier; the color returning to her face, her lips go into a small tight line with the development; but she remains silent; and slowly the color drains again, and her gaze softens and she doesn't press Lisbon to leave.

"I'm a cop, I've seen worse." She says softly, to no one in particular.

No one responds to that and the man in the light blue scrubs pushes a needle into a clear wire and squeezes its contents into it; the paddles come out once more and press against his chest; he jumps with the movement and her eyes flick to the monitor in anticipation.

Nothing.

Her gaze returns to Christina, who's firing out orders like a drill sergeant; and the paddles press down again and he thrives once more; only to go still after.

She sinks her teeth into her lip hard enough to draw blood but she doesn't care, her eyes flicker to the screen once more.

Nothing.

"Come on you arrogant, selfish son of a bitch, don't give up on me now." She spits out; with tears in her eyes, her fingers curl into fists; leaving half crescents on her palms.

She watches Christina's lips move; and can almost, almost hear her speak; _Push 75 milligrams of epi, charge to 300._

The paddles press against his chest once more and she imagines he'll be rightfully pissed because he's going to have a ache when he wakes up due to them – _if _he wakes up ever again; they withdraw and he thrives in the aftermath, she watches as he arches up and falls back; watches his lips move as he gasps, and his eyes flutter open.

She hears a shriek that sounds like a noise an excited child would make (she realizes later that _she_ made that noise); and feels the tears dripping down her cheeks. "He's alive." She murmurs as the door of the room opens with a jarring snap; smacking against the wall and a team of doctors, Christina and the ginger man in the lead, rush down the hall with Jane in there grasps; who's looking quite surprised; given the glance she gets of him; blue-green eyes opened wide and trapped on the ceiling.

She hears the smile in Rigsby's voice when he speaks, "Stubborn bastard, he won't give up on us yet Boss."

"That's because she'd skin him alive if he did." Cho deadpans from in front of her, turning around to face the trio. "You still need attention," He turns to Dr. Kepner. "Can you lead the way?" He asks; and the woman, who'd been watching it all with a small smile gives a sharp nod; the smile dropping as she nods.

"Right this way." She says and they all follow her as she heads for the elevator.

* * *

After being led down a maze of hallways and terribly labeled doors Lisbon finds herself sitting on the edge of a hospital bed; with a gown besides her, she sighs softly and turns; laying on her stomach while a unnamed nurse comes up behind her and cuts open the back of her button up; where she then strips her of it completely.

"You really shouldn't have waited so long to get these treated," Dr. Kepner says softly; and by this time Lisbon knows that she's the talkative kind of doctor, one of those who gets just a bit flustered if she can't hold a conversation; this is what provokes her to respond to the statement.

"I didn't have a choice." She admits, shifting slightly in her place as the nurse pulls the remnants of her shirt from her body; the sleeves leave her after a sharp tug; making a tearing noise as they go, that she knows is dried blood cracking.

"What happened?" She asks, no longer making small talk; instead gathering info for a patient report and hinting that if there's anything Lisbon needs to get off her chest, she'll listen and keep it to herself.

"I was caught in an explosion." She answers, and for a moment she can hear the muffled snarling noise of the car's frame ripping apart and bursting into flames in her own ears, and she cuts the noise off by focusing on the talkative redhead in the room before the screams of her team start to replay.

"That explains the cuts," Dr. Kepner responds and she pauses, "I'm going to start cleaning the burns now, do you want a sedative? Or pain killers?" She asks; and in the wake of her voice there's a soft snapping sound that she recognizes as rubber gloves being pulled on.

She then thinks of Rigsby sitting in the gallery of the OR where Jane's surgery is going on; she'd requested that he send frequent updates through text, no matter what and to tell her imidetly if he crashed again and they couldn't bring him back.

She'll miss that if she's sedated, and her mind will be fuzzy if she's on the pain killers.

"No." She answers and from behind her Dr. Kepner nods.

"Alright, speak up if you change your mind." And with those words a strip of gauze swipes across her shoulder with a ointment that seeps into her skin and burns fiercely enough that it makes her eyes water; but she doesn't let the tears fall, instead she blinks them away and at that moment the door opens and Cho and Van Pelt walk back in.

"They'll be submitting him into the ICU after his surgery is done." Cho states as he walks to one side of the room, where he crosses his arms and leans against the other bed in the room, Van Pelt joins him after a moment of hesitation.

"He's been stable for a while," She says; hope and confidence in her tone and as Lisbon turns her head in the woman's directions she spots the small smile on his lips. "I talked to the trauma surgeon earlier and he said Jane will undoubtedly pull through."

Lisbon nods, feeling a smile play on her lips; but it's hard to smile with the burning sensation creeping underneath her shoulder blades, and for a moment she wishes she had asked for some pain killers, but she chooses to breathe through the feeling over asking for them. "That's good." She states, and her throat feels thick; swollen and the fresh tears in her eyes aren't Dr. Kepner's doing.

It's silent for the next few minutes, the only noise in the room being the unwrapping of fresh gauze and the squirt of ointment being applied to the gauze; and the small hiss of discomfort that manages to break free from Lisbon's lips when it makes contact with her skin.

"He'll be alright, Boss." Cho says, and her eyes dart from where she'd been staring at the wall to him; his face is as impassive as ever but there's true emotion in his voice.

And this time, he isn't lying; she knows that.

Jane will be alright.

* * * His eyes are damp when he opens them, and his throat feels swollen and he knows he should be concerned about it; but he can't bring himself to truly care for his own well being, not at the moment; not with all the memories lurking just underneath the surface.

Lisbon's face after he told her that he loved her; with every intention of never getting the chance to say it again, never getting to see anything other than a distraught and confused look when he tells her.

He swallows again and realizes how fuzzy his mind is at the moment; he knows it's from the pain killers they've given him, which are working full force given the rumpled numb feeling on his chest and arm, he picks his head from the pillow, ignoring the pin prickles that spread across his neck with the movement and glances around the room. One sweep of the room and he knows he's in Intensive Care Unit, which he reckons is a good thing, considering he was shot and nearly lost a arm.

Speaking of which he glances towards the arm in question, the muscle stings; but it's more of the low hum that originates in the aftermath of a scream, and he twists it; it sings and he bends his fingers with a certain amount of difficulty, but for the moment he blames that on the pain killers and not the possibility of permanent nerve damage.

Then there's a knock on the door, he glances up and before he can say a word a doctor pokes her head in.

"Mr. Jane?" She asks, and given how his tongue feels like it's going to be useless in his mouth; he knows his words will be slurred from the drugs, so he doesn't speak to answer her question, instead he nods.

"May I come in?" She asks and he's rather surprised by her tone of voice and how it's screaming at him that she's genuinely concerned for him and his health, that she'll leave if he doesn't want her there and also how she's not looking at him like he's a slab of meat that she'd have fun cutting open and putting back together; that's pretty rare as far as doctor's go, but that doesn't mean he likes her; she's still a doctor after all.

He nods again and she steps into the room; shutting the door gently behind her.

"I'm, Dr. Kepner." She says as she walks over to his bed, extending her hand when she reaches his side; which he takes and shakes for a reasonable amount of time before dropping it. "I treated Miss Lisbon when she was brought in." At this he sits up just a bit straighter; Dr. Kepner smiles at his reaction; and he can tell just by that, that she's a romantic (and she's spotted something between him and Lisbon that intrigues her. But in all honesty everyone's seen something between him and Lisbon, they've just never said anything outright about it; and this stranger doesn't know any better). "She's doing fine by the way, she's sleeping at the moment though, and the rest of your team is upstairs with her." He nods; that's just like them, unwilling to leave her side, although he doesn't blame them, if he could be there at this moment he would be.

"That's good." He says; feeling a smile tug at the corners of his lips almost violently, relief blooms in his chest and the fog in his mind is pushed back just a bit.

And that's when all Hell descends.

At first he thinks he hears himself speak; and it takes a second for it to register that he didn't in fact speak; his lips moved in the words but no sound came out, and given Dr. Kepner's confused expression, this shouldn't be happening.

He clears his throat and tries again; this time mumbling a profanity, which of course, doesn't make it out; his lips move again but no sound.

"Mr. Jane?"

His frown dims as he looks back up at her, he's half way through saying something when it dawns again that she cannot hear him; that he can't speak for whatever reason.

"I'll go fetch someone." She says; looking almost panicked – no, not panicked, concerned; already drawing up possible explanations as to why a gunshot victim has suddenly lost his ability to speak; he can almost see the gears in her mind moving as she attacks this new puzzle with a fair amount of personal interest.

She's about to go when he reaches out and grabs her sleeve and tugs on it, she turns to him once more; "I'll be right back." She tells him as if he was a lost child and he resists the urge to snort at the absurdity of it; but to prove his main point he lifts his hands, his right one numbs over as he goes through the motions of what little sign language he can recall.

She frowns at him; watching his hands and then her eyes rise to meet his face once more; the frown etches a bit deeper, and a look of suspicion joins it; he can see it in the new light in her eyes. "You're not mute, are you?" She asks; skeptical now.

He shakes his head furiously and glances around the room, at his bedside table; desperate for something to write with, it takes her a few seconds before she picks up on what he's looking for but when she does she removes the pen from her lab coat and hands him a small notebook she had in there as well.

_I'm certainly not;_ he writes _ask one of the members of my team. _

She reads over his shoulder and nods once he places the pen down at his side; she steps back. "Alright, I apologize for being rude –"And she means it; and it makes him like her just a bit, "But it's mandatory to ask this," – that's a lie, she's just curious – "You're not doing this for attention are you? Not that there's anything wrong with that, it's just, you cannot physically speak." She states even though it's a question, watching him carefully; most of the skeptical light is gone from her eyes now, but it still lingers; just below the surface.

_I wouldn't be doing this out of choice, and I can get attention in other ways if I needed it. _

She nods, completely ignoring the second statement in his sentence, a teasing tone normally reserved for Lisbon (he blames it on the drugs that that's how it slipped out); "Alright, I'm going to get someone who specializes with whatever this is." She gestures to him with a small flustered movement with her hands and he nods; "Before I go is there anything else you need?"

He's about to write; _my voice_, but he instead settles for something that she can get him.

_A member from my team? _

She smiles at him; "I can do that." She turns and leaves with that.

And of course she brings him Cho, and he wonders if Cho volunteered or if she picked him.

He thinks it's the first one.

* * * * "You better not be doing this for attention." Cho states as soon as Dr. Kepner leaves once more.

_She accused me of the exact same thing. _He writes down on the notepad she had given him.

"I don't blame her; you seem like the kind of person who would do that sort of thing."

_I'm hurt Cho, that you think so poorly of me._

Cho shrugs, "You brought it on yourself."

He pauses for a moment before writing again; more slowly this time, hesitating; which Cho takes into account as he watches him write.

_How's Lisbon?_

Cho's facial expression softens just a little, "She's sleeping at the moment." He clips his voice taunt.

_Care to elaborate on that statement? _

Cho turns to him and Jane catches the edge in his expression; which he titles as a sort of righteous anger and it's quite obvious who he's pissed at; Red John, for getting them all in this situation. "She's got first degree burns in multiple areas, different forms of bruising. Several lacerations, most of which all needed stitches and a incision on her ankle deep enough that it needed to be stapled shut, they gave her a sedation for that which is why she's sleeping now. The car you were in exploded after we got you out."

And she'd stopped because she'd recognized the tune of what was playing; Red John may not have killed him, but he succeeded in destroying one of his most favorable memories; he feels the flicker of rage kindle in his chest but he stops it in its tracks; getting emotional now won't do any good.

"You said earlier you saw who Red John was, are you sure it wasn't one of his disciples?" The last word is filled to the brim with venom and sarcasm; the most emotion he's ever heard from Cho.

_He had every intention of killing me, I could see it in his eyes; he would have done it himself, a very personal crime, never would have sent someone to do it._

"He shot you instead of cutting you up though."

_He always stated that I'd meet death by the barrel of a gun rather than the end of a knife. _

Cho remains silent for a few moments before opening his mouth to ask the inedible question, "Well, who is he?"

Jane opens his mouth to answer and his heart stops in his chest and goose bumps spread across him in waves and he feels a panic so intense he almost vomits; he doesn't know.

He forgot who Red John is.

All that's left is a lingering echo of a very important memory that he can't place.

"Jane?" Cho asks; concern in his voice, he turns towards the man in the bed, who's shaking now, almost violently, Cho watches as his gaze flicks down to the paper and with a very shake grip he writes out.

_I – I don't know, I forgot, the memories gone, _he pauses, _I, _He scribbles over it, his motions with sharp and on edge; the words rushing out onto the paper. _I met Red John and I can't even remember who he is – I_. His hands continue to shake and for a moment he worries he really is going to be sick.

"Jane."

His head snaps up and he stares at Cho for a moment and then words are flying from his lips; anger, hatred, everything that's been boiling underneath the surface and he'd kept a lid on it all; kept the pot tucked away carefully in the kitchen, away from everyone else in the room and now it's somehow fallen over and spilled all over the floor.

It takes him nearly five minutes to realize that Cho can't hear him; that he's only watching the breakdown; and then he snaps his jaw shut and leans back into the bed and struggles to control his breathing, and watches to his distant horror how Cho walks around to the other side of his bed; to where the liquid baggie holding the sedatives and the button to release it remains.

He snatches up the notebook again.

_Cho, don't you dare._

"You almost just gave yourself a heart attack, Jane." He states.

_And yeah, I'm fine now. No need for the sedative. _

Cho stares at him for several seconds and then turns away; his gaze moving to one of the machines, the line that holds his pulse throbs angrily, and to prove a point, that he is _fine_; he works on calming its pace.

He relaxes once more when Cho steps away from the machine and then walks around the bed once more and takes a seat in a chair a few feet away; however, that doesn't stop his mind from still reeling with thoughts; _Why isn't he pushing harder to find out who Red John is?_

His mind offers up the answer that it may be because he doesn't even know himself anymore but he knows that isn't it; Cho would normally still question him, with the slightest suspicion in his tone that he suspects he isn't sharing that info because he plans on tracking down Red John himself and killing him himself (and he knows Cho would be against that, so he wouldn't let him get away with it).

But that may as well be ruled out by the fact he's sitting in a hospital bed with major injuries and incapable of going after a serial killer.

"You're still thinking about it. Stop thinking about it, Jane."

He jumps slightly, glancing over at Cho; who remains impassive as ever, staring out the window across the room, having taken a seat in an empty chair a few feet away.

_Okay, care to pick a topic that we can discuss? _He writes on the notepad and extends his arm to Cho with it in hand, his eyes scan over it.

"That's the worst possible way to start a conversation."

Jane grins and withdraws his arm, placing the notepad in his lap.

"We could discuss what you said to Lisbon." Cho offers after a few moments of silence.

_That's personal._

"You're not going to deny it?"

_It's personal._

"It's one of those days."

And he's right; it's one of those days where the lines between personal life and work blurs and fades away, where the walls crumble; leaving everything out in the open, leaving no where left to hide; where there are no more lies and only truths are spoken.

It's just one of those days, he agrees silently, focusing on the thought he begins to write his response for Cho's choice of discussion.

AN'S:

I won't be surprised if people are a tad upset by the length of this chapter, with it being the monster that it is, at least by my standards; but I can assure you if this story continues the chapters will be closer to 10,000 rather than 15,000+ This one was only so long because it was the first one.

And as far as writing this goes, I was kind of testing the water with this first chapter; if enough people like it, I'll continue it, if not I'll mark I as complete.

But I like to think this could go somewhere.

And this is for my own personal musing, I had a scene in mind, well more of a statement that I wrote whilst writing this, only to go back and delete it, and here it is; It took place between the lines:

But she sure isn't.

* * * * * *

The next few minutes happen as though she isn't in her body;

Here's the deleted statement;

In Heaven, each human soul is given a single Grace; a Grace is the chance to act with those who are still alive on earth, to manipulate things. For example, a girl named Susie Salmon used her grace to blow out the still alive candle in her father's study long after he had left to the site where she was murdered; where he later gets beat to a pulp for being mistaken as something truly awful. Another example, is a girl named Alison, her last name long forgotten to the world, caused a meadow of daisies to bloom outside a small town in Maine.

And so on the morning of March 19th, 2013, Angela and Charlotte Jane used their graces to make sure the people that Patrick Jane, loving husband and father, still very much alive, loved survived the explosion caused by a trap the devil himself had made and laid for the angel that had fallen and few that hadn't, (but surely were and would fall for the one who already had).

And they did [survive], and so did he.

I took that out because it was more of a poem, and the only reason I am sharing it is because I'm rather proud of that, it's what inspired me to write this and on another note due to a review I got on Posthumously, I am not a religious person but I still like to write works "dealing" with it.

Anyway, I'd love it if you left a review letting me know what you thought of this and if it should be continued.


	2. Don't worry my dear, we've got time

The following minutes of their conversation are completely silent; the only noise in the room being the soft beeping of the heart monitor in the corner of the room by his bed. That with the noise of slowly tearing paper on top of it; Jane had ripped any evidence of the conversation about Lisbon from the notepad and was currently folding them into small paper airplanes with great care and precision; which, with a bit of amusement on Cho's part, and a bit of pain on his, he was tossing into the trashcan across the room.

The last airplane had made it's decent into the trash with a gentle glide and curve in the air as it vanished and that's when the door opened once more; both men turned to look at who was walking into the room.

The door opens and a man with dark, slightly peppered hair walks into the room. He looks around his mid-forties and Jane can tell by the way he strides over to the bed he's upset about something; Dr. Kepner slides in through the half opened door in this strangers wake and he's got his answer as to why the man is upset; the doctor below him as done something to disrupt his day.

Whoever the man is, it becomes clearer with every step that he wasn't expecting any patients today (going by the dark look in his eyes and slightest furrow of his brow); probably the only reason he's got one because it's, the patient; Jane, is associated with the CBI, and it's not like he can turn that down.

"Hello, I'm Dr. Shepherd." He says as he extends his hand and Jane reaches out to take it; his movements stiff, while with the other he balances the notepad on his knee and scrawls out, his fingers sliding on the edge of the pen in the balancing act;

_Jane._

Dr. Shepherd nods and Jane watches as some of the man's annoyance melts away from his posture; the lines in his forehead draw back behind the curtain of his mind, "Ah, so it wasn't just a rumor. You can't speak." He glances over his shoulder at Dr. Kepner, who gives a small smile and shrugs; but beneath that sheepish look; just barely lurks a deep rooted annoyance with her boss; however it shines out like sunlight through murky glass for Jane, screaming loud and clear; _God, you can be such an arrogant ass!_

The doctor in question glances around the room and then drags the chair away from the window, shadows dancing across the floor in light shades of blue and gray with the movement; breaking the silence of the room with a thick scraping noise that ends only when he takes a seat.

"I haven't exactly had a chance to look at your case yet -" He begins; and by the man takes a seat, knees propped and spread apart so he can rest his elbows on them it's obvious he's now intrigued.

_It hasn't exactly been written yet.  
_

The man surprisingly smiles and nods before continuing once more, "So would you mind filling me in?" He asks, Jane begins to write but Cho speaks first before he can even finish a sentence on the small notepad.

"He was drugged and kidnapped by a serial killer, received a single laceration on his upper right bicep and was shot in the chest, for unknown reasons when he woke up he was no longer able to speak –"He pauses; to the doctor before them it's a pointless gap of time, but to Jane, he knows Cho is scrounging up a lie. "And has a few memory gaps." A small, pointless tiny lie; but a lie none the less and that's because he's missing only _one_ memory.

Dr. Shepherd opens his mouth to speak, but Kepner beats him too it, "You were drugged?"

_Some kind of heavy sedative, he was very keen I know that. _He writes, and then hands the pad to Cho; who squints slightly at the scratched-out letters, attempting to make sense of them; before reading it aloud and handing it back to Jane, who again takes on the position of balancing the pad on his knee while holding the pen in his hand once more.

She then strides across the room and snatches the in-progress report from its crib at the end of his bed and scans it, her head snapping up to look at him with a frown that slowly becomes etched into her features. "Have they been – does anyone know this?" She asks.

_Well, I'm not a doctor, I wouldn't know that. _Cho glares at him; but then with obvious reluctance, reads it.

She sends him a look for that, one very close to what Lisbon would normally give him; even if at the time she had no intention of acutely making him stop wind up the suspects (which is why he normally got that specific look). But this isn't Lisbon; so he doesn't smile at the look, instead he sends one right back, letting a skeptical expression dance across his face, topping it all off with a slightly raised eyebrow.

Her look turns to a glare; and he smirks, "Well," She growls, clearly frustrated with the man before her. "Do you know if you've had whatever it is pumped out?" She asks, and before her Dr. Shepherd twists in his chair; looking over his shoulder and at the woman behind him.

Jane in the bed moves, just barely, turning the notepad around in his hand and balancing it on his thigh; he taps the previous statement with a pen.

Her glare intensifies; and then is gone in a moment's notice, swept under the rug; already forgotten, that is till her gaze lands on her superior doctor; who looks less than happy with the universe at the moment. "Alright well, Mr. Jane, I'll be back later." With that, Dr. Shepherd rises from his seat, pushing the chair away with the movement. "Dr. Kepner, may I talk to you in the hall?" He asks as he brushes past her, the woman sends one last glare in Jane's direction before following him into the hallway.

"Stop doing that." Cho tells him as soon as the door slides shut once more.

_Doing what?_ He writes; frowning slightly when the pen slides from his grasp, dashing across the paper in an ugly dark and splotchy line, the side of his hand making a small noise as it hits the paper.

"Harassing the doctors. Lisbon told us what happened last time you were in the hospital."

_She was being over dramatic, they weren't literally begging her to take me._

"Stop it." Cho tells him, leaning back into the chair, settling in quickly as if he'd never left; he picks up the book on the bedside table and crack's it's spine, bending it back so it's pressed against the cover; where he then gives his full attention to it; with the exception of the occasional glance at the very damaged man in the hospital bed.

The man in question's head begins to nod, dipping down towards his chest and then rolling to the right, pressing against the pillows; drifting in the obvious oblivion of sleep.

At least until the door opens with a rather large and loud snap; he twitches slightly, but goes still once more in the bed; Cho turns towards the door, not bothering to rise, and Jane doesn't bother to open his eyes at the sound of footsteps.

"How's he doing?" It's Rigsby; his tone is aiming for soft; the kind of voice people take on when a sleeping child is in the room and they do everything to keep from waking it.

"He's mute and can't remember who Red John is." Cho answers; this is greeted by silence and then Rigsby's no longer trying to keep quite when he speaks again.

"What do you mean he's mute? And –"

Cho cuts him off, "He physically cannot speak, and he didn't hit his head, he's got no sign of a concussion or anything physical that could lead to him not being able to speak. Rigsby, when I say he's mute I mean he cannot speak, end of story."

"What about Red John?"

"He can't remember who he is, and when he tried he nearly gave himself a heart attack."

"Do you think he's lying?"

"Any other situation I think he would be lying, but in the end he'd rather tell us and have us go get the guy rather than keep it to himself and risk him getting away."

"Oh." Rigsby mumbles, and then he adds his tone soft once more. "Now what do we do?"

Excitement flickers in his veins; shocking away the option of sleep, only for a few moments; and he thrives in those seconds, waiting and straining to hear Cho's answer; what his idea for the next step is.

"We wait for whatever comes next."

Rigsby's silent for a few moments before he speaks, "That's some deep stuff man."

"Shut up."

0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0

Her mind is foggy and slow when she wakes up; her limbs are numb and useless, her muscles ache and it takes her longer than she'd like to admit to recall the events that got her here.

She shifts in the bed, pulling the blankets with her and turning her head toward the clock on the wall at the far end of the room; the light blue walls are splashed with a warm orange that comes from the setting sun or the rising one if you get up early enough to see it.

She'd loved that color growing up, it marked the end of Hell for the night; when her father had finally drank enough on some nights by that time he would just pass out, and maybe for once she didn't have to worry about a black out.

She squints at the clock; attempting to see past its halo;

7:38 PM

"Hey, I didn't see you were awake." A gentle tone whispers; and her gaze snaps down to the woman at her bedside, who is shutting a case file; it's Grace, and under her gaze the woman shifts, pulling her chair closer and leaning in.

"How are you feeling?" She asks and Lisbon can't help but be surprised by how caring the woman is being, and a few seconds after the surprise melts away, panic sets in and takes its place and even more space than that.

"Is everything alright?"

Grace's soft expression changes to her own look of surprise, her eyebrows race each other to her hairline but she doesn't look like she lost a battle; so that's a good sign. The newly formed look of surprise melts away to what may as well be amusement and Grace smiles at her in the aftermath of the newly formed expression.

"Everything's fine, now you don't need to worry about that, how are _you_ feeling?"

Her foggy mind wants to push; to push and ask questions, but another part of her is still incredibly tired, despite just waking up and wants to curl into a ball in the warm bed sheets and never move again; the two battles inside of her but in the end neither win.

"I've been better." She admits softly, and then she blinks; and betrays the panic she's beginning to feel again when she calmly asks. "How's Jane?"

Grace's smile only growls, just by a few centimeters, but grows none the less; and there's relief in her tone when she speaks. "He was awake earlier for a bit, but he's sleeping now. Rigsby and Cho are with him, his surgery went fine and he's gonna be alright."

Relief pure and raw brushes against her heart and builds a foundation in her chest, for a moment she's worried that she might cry because of how intense it is; but she doesn't and for that she's incredibly thankful, so instead of crying she shifts; uncurling her legs underneath her, despite their screaming protests, and she leans back into the pillows and chokes out;

"That's good."

The words comes out on a sigh; which does sound wet and sloppy and given the face Grace makes at it its clear the woman is expecting tears to fall and flow at the end of the noise.

But before she can say anything in a form of comfort her phone vibrates, skidding across the desk and humming softly as it goes.

Lisbon watches through half opened eyes as Grace snatches the phone up, glances over it and sends a response and then promptly sets it back down on the bedside table, and when she looks up to catch Lisbon staring she speaks. "It's just – I promised to give Rigsby and Cho any updates, and you're awake, so that's an update."

She nods and gives a soft smile, despite how her ragged, and now torn apart mind trys to twist the words around and make them confusing. She blinks a few times and ponders with the new thought that has enters her mind, "Do you think you could get me some coffee?"

0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0

"Lisbon's awake." Cho states, and Jane stirs slightly; stopping at the last second from rolling over, there's a pause of silence and he knows both men are staring at his back; waiting to see if he wakes up, somehow woken at the same time as the woman a few floors above.

"That's just creepy." Rigsby grumbles softly, drawing his gaze away from Jane's now still form; Cho ignores the comment.

"Can you head up there? Van Pelt's heading out to get coffee."

He half listens to the noises that follow as Rigsby scoops up his jacket and heads for the door; shoes squeaking on the floor as he goes. He pauses by the door; which clicks when he pulls it open.

"Hey Cho, you can head home if you want."

The man in question remains silent; and the room does the same, and it's all broken when Rigsby chuckles softly, "Well, at least get some coffee."

Jane shifts in the bed once more, pressing his body into the pillows; he feels Cho's eyes on him once more and then stills completely; a few minutes tick by before his ears are filled to the brim with the sound of footsteps as Cho walks from the room; opens the door, and shuts it as he leaves.

He waits about twenty more seconds before lowly shifting; focusing on his breathing as he moves, attempting to keep his heart calm and steady as he does; sitting up and then dipping his feet out from underneath the covers to dangle over the edge. He flinches slightly when the bottom of his feet touch the floor, but then slides down the rest of the way; wobbling slightly when he stands.

He turns around; pleased with himself that he can in fact increase his movement's speeds just a bit. He scoops up the notepad from within the thin tangled bed sheet and opens it, picks up the pen and writes; carefully, taking his time.

_Be back later, don't worry. _

He strips the paper from the notepad; which he tucks into his waist band, and lays the single sheet on the top of his pillows. He turns and walks; going as far as he can until the wires on his chest tug, and then he stops; and slowly peels them off, the machines scream at once; sharp angry little beeps and in the moments as they begin he dashes for the bathroom; slips into it, and shuts the door.

Just as he shuts it; the other one, inside of the room opens; he listens to the sharp slapping of Cho's footsteps on the floor, hears the mumbled version of his name and the profanity that follows as the footsteps come to a halt; he's undoubtedly noticed the note and read it. He waits a few more seconds and he hears footsteps again; this time a quicker rate as Cho turns and dashes out the door; which shuts with a large thump.

He waits ten seconds and then opens the bathroom door; poking his head out, glancing around the room and then when he takes in the empty room he steps out.

He doesn't break his stride as he walks from the bathroom to the door Cho had just exited; no one glances his way as he walks right out of the room and down the hall, right past Cho; who has his back turned, talking to the head nurse in a frantic tone.

He doesn't stop, doesn't look back doesn't hesitate. He only stops once he's rounded the first corner and is out of Cho's possible line of vision.

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He's beginning to question his judgment however, of this rushed and pathetically made up plan when he barely is able to dodge a nurses cart as the nurse pushing it rushes by him without a single word; he sucks in a breathe and struggles to control the heart hammering in his chest, he inhales more slowly the next time; and feels his shoulders loosen from their sudden rigid stance as his heart begins to slow.

He turns a few corner; making a map of this hospital in his mind, it's similar to the Asylum he'd been in (the clear pristine map is the only thing, he really remembers at the moment, although in all honesty it's the only thing he'll _let_ himself remember at the moment) the layout's almost the same, so if he keeps trusting his gut he knows the stairwell will be right around the corner.

And it is; and on its door in a fine, sharp print reads:

STAIRWELL 3

With two small white arrows a few inches after, one pointing up and one pointing down.

That's when he hears it; the angry scrape of heals, followed a few seconds later by Cho's voice, "Jane!" and then Rigsby's, who shouts the same thing. He smiles to himself at the irony, even if he wanted to, he couldn't answer.

He sucks in a breathe as they round the corner, his head snapping to the right and he spots a door; doesn't bother to read the label, he just dashes for it; yanking the door open and sliding through it, and shutting the door and yanking the blinds on the window on the door down after. He then promptly falls back against it; not bothering to try and muffle the thump he makes; instead, he lets himself sink to the floor, gasping for breath now and hoping to some unrealistic God that he won't have a heart attack and the organ in question hammers away in his chest.

_All that just from a short little dash, it must have been what, five feet, at most? _

The cold wood is a blessing against his back; and he manages to calm his breathing enough just in time to hear the aggressive footsteps go pounding past his door. His new safe haven for the time being.

He opens his eyes then; and takes in the room. It's got medical supplies stacked against the wall which he's currently leaning against; the first metallic book case like structure is short; and then the one connected to it stretches along the wall keeps going to it touches the opposing wall.

The opposing wall is blank, then the wall across from him is painted a dark deep blue; the same color as the doctor's scrubs. It's a beautiful color, he shifts and squints; looking, well attempting, to look through the windows that are on that wall; but all he can make out past the blinds is a dull, sharp orange color of the setting sun; which is currently blurring the edges of the sharp white plastic-like strips that make up the blinds; but also stop the light from dancing across his face, in what he would know would be bright enough to be painful.

A few inches under the windows is a perfectly made bed.

He pushes himself to stand; walking over to it slowly; his heart's slowed just a bit, but his breathing still sounds far too shallow to his ears.

He extends his left arm and lifts one of the white plastic-like blinds and squints at the sunlight bleeding in, trying to see past it; and that's when the door opens.

He spins around so fast he nearly falls over; half falling onto the bed below him; the intern who's just walked in gives a startled yelp, but then rushes over to help him when he _does_ fall, he manages to catch himself and ushers her away, opening his mouth to speak but then realizing he can't; and then making a few hand gestures.

She of course gives him the space he needs, jumping back at the first hand motion and then drifting in her spot a few feet away, "I mean, are you alright?" She's asking questions; completely skipping over the fact patients are probably not supposed to be in here; given her surprised yelp.

He gives a fierce nod, inhales sharply and focuses on his breathing; which he manages to get under control, and he sinks onto the bed; his heart hammering once more, he focuses on it for a few minutes; and manages to calm it to a soothing rhythm; and the intern stands there the entire time, watching him. Once he's figured that he can move again he pulls the notepad from his waist band, and waves his other hand in a shaking motion; she frowns at him, but then within a seconds yanks a pen (the same dark blue one he'd left in his room) from her lab coat pocket and hands it to him.

_I'm fine, thank you for the concern._ He writes; unhappy and a bit worried by how unsteady the letters come out; a far cry from his normal neat and pristine ability of writing and then holds the notepad out to her; the one slanted blind letting in enough light, for it to splatter into the room; casting everything a soft orange hue and making it bright enough for the letters to be visible.

Her eyes scan over the notepad and she looks back up at him; a frown etching slightly into her features. "You're mute?" She asks; her tone a little close to skeptical, he smiles at that and nods.

"You're not going to have a heart attack on me, are you?" She asks, with the hint of a smile on her lips.

He shakes his head once more.

"Alright, then Sir, you need to leave."

He shakes his head and reaches for the notepad, which she gives him; he can see a spark in her eyes; she's intrigued, curious by what's going on here.

_Can't. _And he relaxes a bit more by the way the letters flow on the page; sharp and clean, pristine, not close to his normal hand writing but better than what he had written a few moments ago.

"Why not?" She asks, and he doesn't bother to look up at her, just begins to write an answer.

_Are there still people outside running around screaming Jane?_

"Yeah, I think so." She answers.

_Well then, there's your answer, I'm Jane._

"And why are there people running around screaming your name, Jane?" She asks and he can hear the smirk in her voice.

_I'm a consultant for the CBI and I wasn't supposed to leave my bed; those men, in the suits screaming my name, are my co-workers. _

"Well, I'm sure you had a perfectly good reason as to why you shouldn't have left your bed. And you should go back, before I call them. And besides it isn't nice to worry them."

_First off, you find it funny that they're cops, and yet they can't even find their own co-worker in a small hospital, so you don't care if it isn't nice, and second I can't go back yet, I have to find a friend. _

She's silent for a few moments; and he knows in those few seconds of silence she's reconsidering forcing him to return to his room, and he takes that consideration and trys to twists it into a deal with everything he's got hidden up his sleeve.

_She was caught in an explosion, her name is Teresa Lisbon, she's on the fifth floor, I need to see her. _

His letters are chalky again; messy, but not because his hand is shaking this time around; but because he's writing in a rush, attempting to get the words out as fast as he can before the small window of opportunity of using this doctor's pity for his own gain closes.

"Why?" She asks; and her voice is loud, confidant, suspicious once more, but for a different reason this time around.

_That's personal._

The letters are long and curvy; his heart is beating a steady rhythm in his chest, slow and calm; despite the emotions swirling in it.

Silence greets that statement and then a reluctant sigh, that in all honesty; in the light of the end of this day, doesn't sound too reluctant, like a parent granting a child a wish after some faked hesitation because the kid was gonna get it all along.

_What's your name? _He writes, curious and if he's honest with himself he likes this doctor.

"Lexie Grey." She answers, offering him a smile, and then she turns; heading for the door; "Let's go." She chirps, opening it and sliding out before he's even risen to stand.

He pushes himself to stand; drawing away from the slightly warm sheets with regret and a small feeling of satisfaction, he turns around as he stands; fixing the crooked blind as he goes; drawing it out from where it had been crammed behind the others; and straightens it out, cracking the plastic back into its original place and staring at it for a few moments; finding himself ironically missing the sunshine, even though he'd only felt it for a few minutes, before turning and walking from the door in the wake of Dr. Grey.

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The woman's stride is stiff and confidant. The qualities of a good doctor; the qualities of someone who thinks they're the smartest person in the room.

She doesn't once look back to see if he's following her, she doesn't glance at the nurses weaving in and out through the hall, she doesn't look at the flash of suit that vanishes down a hall's corridor, and Jane knows that flash of suit had been Rigsby.

He's testing the limits of his biofeedback rather quickly; and when they board the elevator he sags against the wall; his chest heaving slightly, she looks at him with what anyone, with a exception of a few people, would call a impassive look on her face; but he can see the concern lurking underneath; it's only visible appearance being the dash of light in her eyes.

He lifts the notepad from his side and writes, and then switches it to his right hand to hold it between them; he ignores the way his arm protests; the way his bicep aches, in favor of listening to the sound of the elevator's doors scrapping across the floor and then clicking as they lock together.

_So you're an intern? _

She leans a little bit to the left and bends her head as she reads the notepad and then promptly pulls back to lean against the wall after reading it. "Yup," She answers. "Fifth year, and you're a consultant for the CBI?" And as she speaks; he smiles at the way the second half of the sentence sounds; knowing that the words, _consultant, CBI_ probably feel foreign in her mouth; almost soapy. But she covers that up quickly, dusting away any traces of her discomfort and confusion. "So what do you do?" She asks, looking at him once more with genuine interest, only for her gaze to flick back down to the notebook when he begins to write.

_I observe._

"You observe?" She rolls the word around; like a marble in her mouth as she asks and then promptly snorts; the elevator dings, and the doors slide open; only to slide shut a few moments later; but not before the very obvious sight of Cho, and Jane _knows_, as the doors click shut once more the man on the other side had seen him; looked him dead in the eyes even, but Jane pushes down any possible panic and listens to the woman beside him. "What does that even mean?" She continues.

_I look at people; judge their character and personality see if they could be the killer._

Or at least, that's a shortened version of it; the only person with a long version is either another Mentalist, or Teresa Lisbon.

"Judge their character?" She asks; and her tone has changed, she's intrigued now.

All he does is nod, and from the corner of his eyes he sees her tilt her head back to the side and he knows what's coming before she even speaks. "Alright, judge my character then." There's mirth in her tone, she's skeptical, clearing not believing what he's claimed to be able to do.

_You're confidant, you're in love, you've got that eager gleam in your eye, so I'm assuming it's someone at the hospital or otherwise you wouldn't have that, you clearly think I'm romantically involved with the co-worker we're going to see otherwise we wouldn't be going to see her, and your pregnant, but going by the way you're standing I don't think you know it yet; and of course you are going to deny that, given that you are a doctor and you would have 'seen the signs' but I recommend a blood test once this is all over. _

While he writes he keeps the pad tilted away from her; out of her line of sight, so she won't glance over and catch and word and stop him from writing anymore; when he's finished writing he rips the piece of paper (nearly filled to the brim with writing given the small size of the notepad) and hands it to her.

It takes her a few moments to read it; but by then the doors have already slid open, and then he's walking; his stride now stiff and confidant.

"I'm – I'm not pregnant!" Dr. Grey yelps from behind him, dashing to catch up despite the words are obviously spoken with disgust and annoyance that a stranger would claim such a thing.

Funny, he'd thought she'd be angrier.

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Grace leaves the room with a small smile on her face and a look of confidence and understanding.

Lisbon lets out the breathe she didn't know she'd been holding once the woman is on the other side of the door and sinks against the pillows, her thoughts are buzzing with a intensity fierce enough to clear the fog created by the drugs from her mind.

She lifts a hand out from underneath the warm thin blankets surrounding her; ignoring the goose bumps that spread across her wrist when it comes in contact with the surrounding cold air (which is only getting colder as the sun sets) and rubs at her eyes, sighing softly to herself.

In all honesty she doesn't want coffee, in fact the idea of eating or drinking _anything_ makes her ill, she just wanted Grace to leave; and by giving the woman a task to do she got her wish.

She wanted to be alone so she could deal with the thoughts buzzing around in her head, she wanted to take a few minutes to herself and wrap and tie up any loose ends so they can get to the bigger task at hand and give it _all_ of their attention.

She sighs once more and scrubs the back of her hand across her eyes and pinches the bridge of her nose; a headache's forming on her temple despite the fading sedative and pain killers, which, are beginning to wear off given the light hum of pain in her ankle; which she knows will truly start to hurt when they wear off completely.

She lets her eyes float shut; wanting to focus on something else then the oncoming and inedible tidal wave of physical pain, and so her mind dips into the newly formed memories and she's granted the nightmarish sight of Jane lying before her, fresh blood coating his teeth; his eyes hooded, his skin pale, about to tell her the identity of Red John but then he doesn't.

Instead he says words that she quite honestly never expected to hear from him again, at least in a serious manner.

"_I love you."_

And after he said them, after and before he confusion and the horror she paused, and compared it to the other time he said it, and that led to considering some things she never really let herself think about, did he mean it when he said he forgot telling her the first time? That maybe he was simply hyped up at that moment, but if he was, what did that say?

She had her answer, now; No, no, he didn't forget, he was lying about that.

But then now that she knows that it brings on another question, _Why?_

And she's sure she could answer that one for herself, it wasn't the right time, what the hell was she supposed to do with that info, and how was she supposed to feel about it? Then again, she regretted asking him what he meant the second the words had left her mouth, so surely that says something.

But now he's said it **again** and it's not like she can ignore it, and he said it in front of her team; their team, and he said it with what he knew would be his dying words; and when you get that chance, to pick them you, you make sure pick some damn good ones because you want them to mean something in the end; to everyone, to the person you said them to.

And if she's honest with herself; about everything, the questions and the answers that leaves only one thing;

How does she feel about this?

And before she can even begin to ponder that question the phone, the ugly plastic white one, although it's closer to a lighter shade of yellow given the amount of stains on it, at the side of the bed rings, she pauses; hesitating, she could ignore it and go back to her thoughts; which are completely made up of questions that she doesn't have the answer to and which are also spiraling downwards with a ferocity that she's got no way to stop, or answer the phone.

She answers the phone.

"Hello?"

The first thing she hears is the sound of distant voices, and for a moment she fears the worst; her mind flipping back to the call Red John had made earlier that day (she wonders if she'll have to deal with that memory every time she answers the phone now, and if she's honest with herself, she knows the answer to that already), but then one voice rings through; clear and sharp, and she'd know it anywhere.

"_Dad,"_ Her voice growls; irritated, and annoyed. _"Dad!"_ She snaps, _"Da –"_She doesn't even make it through the name the third time, _"Look, you need to calm down, she'll be alright, look at the screen – Look at the screen! See, there's no big live written in red, this is old footage, okay?"_

"Anabeth?" Lisbon asks, her own voice leaving the small tone it had taken on; changing from the slightly drugged CBI agent to the concerned aunt.

"_Hi Reese,"_ Her niece chirps. "_Look! She answered, she's alright –"_There's an audible scuffle in the next few seconds, followed by; _"No! I am not giving you the phone till you calm down! And yes, I get to make that call because you were a mess earlier, now go!"_Her niece's voice continues, clear and crisp and so very agitated.

"Anabeth?" She asks again, shifting in the bed; pulling up the blankets around her, curling her useless legs underneath her before settling back into the pillows while she waits for her niece's response.

"_Hello,"_ Her niece says again; her tone soft and small, so very much like the child she had used to be but when she speaks again this tone is gone; and in its place the one of a teenager; full of the confidence you have in everything around you up until you to see the terrors that the world has to offer, _"You know it's Annie, Reese. Where are you, by the way?" _

The second time she speaks Lisbon can hear the concern and worry, less prominent in her tone, less childlike but it's still lurking beneath the surface. She swallows and clears her throat, "At a hospital, I'm not sure which one though." She glances around the room as she speaks; despite how the muscles in her neck scream in protest; looking for any sort of sign that would indicate the name of the hospital, she finds nothing.

Silence meets her answer and she knows what that silence means; Annie's taking in the info, collecting it, wrapping it up tight and putting it in the corner of her heart and head for later; where she can go over it in detail. _"I thought so,"_ Her niece admits softly, _"The news station keeps broadcasting a video clip, over and over_ _–"_She pauses and clears her throat, _"Dad got really worried, and then you weren't answering your phone – he thought it was a live stream."_Her voice trails off, dipping into the earlier spectrum; it's as though she can't decide which part to play; confidant young woman or child afraid for the life of a loved one.

"What channel?"She asks.

Annie tells her and she snatches up the remote on the bedside table and turns on the TV mounted a few feet away from the bed; the pathetic thing clicks and chirps, and buzzes softly as the static clears from the screen; she punches in the numbers and looks up and waits.

At first a news reporter's rambling, and then it begins; all over again, and this time she can watch it play out piece by piece rather than have to live it in the rush.

"Wait, wait, slow down, what's going on?" It's Brenda Shettrick, on the screen; a frown edging into the top of her forehead as a man in a suit is drastically trying to get her attention; he leans in, lips close to her ear and says something; the camera doesn't pick it up and when he pulls away she stares at him in shock, but Lisbon spots something other than that; she spots the greedy gleam of light in Shettrick's eye; the 'big scoop' is just within her reach.

Her head swivels back to the camera, she's ecstatic now; but she's hiding it was the same mask of cool and collected concern, "A call just came into the CBI; supposedly from the Serial Killer known as Red John. He's captured CBI consultant Patrick Jane –"There's a blip, and Jane's face; impassive for once, pops up on screen. (She thinks distantly of how he'd refused to smile for the photo, no matter what, and afterword's he'd ignored her nagging him about, she thinks he'd even found it a bit amusing) and then Brenda's on screen once more and she speaks; and when she does some of that excitement bleeds into her tone; it's like blood into the ocean, she thinks, you can't stop it, no matter how hard you press on the wound; some of the blood is still gonna flow out and taint the ocean a soft murky shade of maroon.

"And left him for dead."

Brenda's head swivels to the left, a fierce snap; and the camera follows it, just in time for Lisbon to catch her own retreating form; heading for the elevators in a dash, her team follows within seconds, a look of concern on Van Pelt's and Rigsby's faces, Cho impassive as ever. "And there goes Jane's team." Narrates Brenda, she pauses and the camera zooms in on Lisbon's face; her eyes are frantic, but the rest of her face is careful; collected, she watches as her own image's hands skid behind her back, checking for her gun; for a moment she feels the relief she had felt during the moment, feeling the cold metal underneath her fingertips.

And then the elevator doors slide shut.

Silence follows, the camera swivels back to Brenda; who's staring in the direction of the elevator; she looks back at the camera and surprisingly that greedy gleam is gone from her eyes. "Well," She says; truly calm, with a hint of concern underlying her words. "What are you waiting for?" There's the shuffle of footsteps in the background; bags being slammed shut, the opening and closing of a door, "Follow them."

It's all jerky movements; but a few minutes later Lisbon's black SUV is on screen, being recorder as it races down the street, far above the speed limit. "That ahead of us is Lisbon and her team." She pauses and the sound of siren's cuts into the shot; dull and far away, getting louder as the ambulance blooms into view, a little speck of white and red in the far left section of the screen. "And that –"She begins to say, when a man in the background comments, cutting her off;

"Isn't she going a bit fast?" He asks as she cuts through a traffic light; cars skidding to a stop to let her by and prevent a crash, horns blaring angrily in the aftermath.

Silence meets his statement and then Brenda speaks once more; incredibly impassive, with maybe the hint of suggestion of something else in her tone; of something more, something that normally goes unspoken, underneath a silent rule.

"Agent Lisbon doesn't mess around when it comes to Patrick Jane."

And as she speaks the black SUV takes a harsh turn, wheels skidding visibly on the road as she pulls into the scarcely filled airport parking lot, Brenda turns to the camera man from where she sits, riding shotgun. "Keep filming until I say so." She tells him, and the camera swivels as the man holding it nods. With that the car stops slowly; a complete opposite to the jagged stop of its companion ten feet in front; the team steps from the car in time to watch the form of Lisbon go running over to the sole black Volvo.

Brenda remains silent as the camera blurs and focuses in on the bright red smile; a sharp contrast to the brown tinted window shield it rests on. "Oh my god." A woman comments in the background, a few muffled gasps follow. The camera swivels and re-focuses on Agent Lisbon, her silhouette a sharp contrast to the dark colors of the pavement and car around her; it gives her a silver lining, she reaches the door; her team following, she pauses just a moment; and the camera zooms in a little bit more; focusing on her face, her eyes squeezed shut, her hands curling like snakes are the handle, her hair fluttering wildly around her head and neck.

It's all caught in sharp detail when she inhales swiftly; her shoulders moving with the movement and yanks the door open, the audio clips and she becomes louder; a gasp is heard as she stares at the sight inside, everyone else remains silent, breaths held; as they watch her climb into the car.

"Does that mean –"The same woman begins to speak; she sounds hopeful, almost giddy as the agent vanishes.

"She'd go in there even if it's just his body." Brenda Shettrick states; silence meets her statement, another thing gone unspoken but this time it's crystal clear of what's not being said that they all agree on that statement.

And then Rigsby steps forward; walking to the frame of the car, where he leans in and says something; his face is blocked from view, but it's obvious that his shoulders sag when he pokes his head into the car; in what could either be relief -

Or disappointment.

And then he turns, shouting something; and the camera swivels, catching the view of the ambulance's door snaps open; paramedics in white rushing around in frantic movements as they pull a gurney and it seems everyone lets out the breathe they'd been holding.

The shot returns to Rigsby; he's leaning in, arms extended as a silhouette's slowly come into view, two people molded together in the shot; the colors of their clothing dark up and murky until the point where they step from the car and into the sunlight and everything becomes clear and pristine as Lisbon stumbles; a man draped over her shoulders; his chest heaving rapidly, eyes squinted and tightly squeezed shut; his face a corrupt mask of pain and agony; which happens to be turned towards the sky.

"He's alive." Someone says.

Rigsby catches Jane by the upper arms after a moment of hesitation and what happens next, none of them could be prepared for; a noise similar to what an animal would make in its last moments rips from the throat of Patrick Jane; he jerks back, away from Rigsby, feet sliding out from under him; Lisbon ascends, keeping her hands on him which flutter across his chest and shoulders, she holds most of his weight as Rigsby attempts to get a grip on the man once more.

The noise continues; lasting a few seconds before it abruptly ends and the camera makes a soft muffled noise in the aftermath and then zooms in, focusing in on the now still forms.

Jane's visibly shaking; his face pale, close enough to match the clouds in the sky above with just a hint of cream and other colors. The tension in his jaw is vibrant and so very visible and at his side, with a hand resting on his face, and the other on his shoulder, is Teresa Lisbon; her expression filled to the brim with concern and what no one wants to name – love and intense compassion.

Then the paramedics ascend, taking her place; and somehow in the end Jane's on the gurney, being dashed away towards the ambulance; the camera stays on him up until the point when he's loaded into the back of the vehicle and then it turns; focusing on Lisbon and her team.

The woman in question's footsteps begin to slow; her silhouette shakes as she comes to a stop, shadow swaying and morphing into a unrecognizable shape on the ground below it. The light from the sun blurs into the shot being shown, masking her features in a shadow; that is till it zooms in, leaving the sight from about thirty feet away for one that is up close and personal; showing her distraught and visibly upset expression.

She stands still, a look of realization dances across her features – just for a few seconds, and then it's gone; replaced by overpowering sadness and a dash of horror; and then surprise when she suddenly turns to the left and Agent Van Pelt is standing beside her. She says something and Lisbon replies, Van Pelt offers an answer; her face is calm and collected, understanding; the complete opposite of the woman who she's talking too.

Lisbon nods and begins to walk away, just a step and that's when the car behind them bursts into flames and the camera gives an angry shake; "Holy shit!" Someone yelps, and within seconds the shot refocuses; Van Pelt is long gone; only to be picked up a few feet away, tossed like a rag doll by the explosion but guarded from shrapnel by her vest.

"Where's Agent Lisbon?" Brenda asks once the roaring of the flames dies down enough for the camera to pick up her voice, her tone is distant; the words sounding like they're being scrapped up from the bottom of the barrel; glossed over with real concern.

The camera swivels; scanning the area, nothing, and then re-scanning, spotting a lifeless form on the ground further away than Van Pelt; a deep crimson color pouring from it, casted in a sharp ugly yellow light from the flames.

"Oh god –"It's Brenda again, and the camera stays focused on the scene as a paramedic comes in; rushing to Lisbon's side.

"_You paused."_ Annie says from the other end and it takes a moment for Lisbon to pull her eyes away from the terrifying form of her lifeless body; and then the guilt begins to trickle in, knowing her family, her team; saw her like this.

"What?" She asks when she can finally get her tongue to move.

"_You paused,"_ Her niece repeats; her tone on edge, something close to what sounds like she'd be accusing her of something. _"You could have walked away, I've seen this clip enough times to know that, but you paused, after they took him away – and it wasn't shock that made you stop, so what was it?"_

Lisbon blinks; the form of the paramedic helping her up blurring out before her eyes, she clears her throat and considers lying, saying it's nothing; just for a moment, as she listens to the echo of her once favorite song play away in her ears; it's a dull muddled noise despite how clear it had been during that moment. It'd been sharp enough to pierce her heart and rip out her soul, completely stealing her away from reality for a few moments; into a memory when she was pressed up against Jane, the two of them swaying softly to the tune, he'd been warm and solid and so very – like himself, comforting; and during the dance and she'd felt safe, she'd felt like she was coming home after a very long trip; and she hadn't felt that way in _years_.

"There was a song, playing in the car." She speaks; and as she does she doesn't even realize that she is, doesn't realize until after she has – the last letter leaving her lips; and she isn't even sure of what she's just said but she continues anyhow.

"_I know,"_ Her niece whispers; her tone soft and careful as if she could possibly break the moment and the trance her aunt is under would break and loose the single chance of hearing the other side of the story._ "But I can't make it out."_

"More than words, by Extreme." Lisbon debriefs, she pauses, clearing her throat; blinking even though she can't see anything before her; it's all dull blurred out colors a pathetic contrast to the sharp ones she'd seen earlier in the morning, the ones she knows Jane would have found beautiful, would have loved. "It was –"She should get used to saying that, "My favorite song and I had um –"She pauses again clearing her throat once more; she thinks of how she felt earlier; like she'd been trying to cough up glass, only this time, thankfully the edges of the glass have been taped over so it's a little less painful. "I had danced with Jane to it a few years back." Despite all her lips twitch up a fraction at the memory and for a moment she swears she can feel the warmth of his breath on her ears when he speaks, and then it's gone; and she's cold once more.

"And I heard it playing, and all I could think of was how it – how twisted it was, and how I knew where it was from and what it felt like when I was dancing with him, how it felt like it was coming home –"She stutters slightly at the confession, expecting a sort of snarky remark from the other end; but it doesn't come and she continues to speak, softer this time; taking on her niece's earlier example of a whisper.

"All I could think about how it had felt to be with him, and then suddenly all I could remember was –" She swallows, "The horror, how terrifying it was to find him laying in that damn car, not knowing if he was alive or not. It's just what that song used to mean, it felt so tainted in that moment."

She stops speaking; and she has nothing more to say in that moment.

And then she gets the snarky remark. _"So, you're in love with this guy, right? Cause I mean, no one talks about a man like that unless they're in love, or just really passionate about the kind of work he does – Like to a point of creepiness." _

Blush surprisingly dots across her cheeks; sharp and almost painful at how intense the heat is; it washes over her back and she squirms in the pillows; the blankets suddenly too much because now even her toes are warm, her lips twitch into something close to a smile. "I – I am not in love with, Jane!" She declares, cursing herself over her stutter.

"_You sure, Reese? You sounded pretty hesitant there for a moment." _She can hear the smirk in her niece's voice.

"I'm positive," She growls. "I am not in love with Patrick Jane." She says, more to herself rather than the sassy teenager on the other end of the phone.

"_Oh well, that's just not very convincing at all, Sis. You know you were always a terrible actor, here, you can go again but say it with a bit more emotion this time around, alright?" _

She makes a noise, something that comes out at the beginning of a stutter; but it never progresses into anything, never even comes to the brink of becoming a sentence; instead, she sits with her mouth open like a idiot in a hospital bed; replaying the scene that just happened over and over in her head before she finds her voice.

"Tommy –"She begins to say.

There's the sound of fabric stretching in the background; her brother laying back into a sofa she presumes, _"I take it Patrick Jane is the one on the gurney?"_ He asks; his tone dipping from a teasing, friendly and warm to something closer to how one might talk to a grieving widow; filled with concern and soft understanding, and that unspoken question; _Are you alright?_

She clears her throat and the blush that had come with vengeance makes a retreat; "He is. He's fine now though." She clears her throat again; shards of glass bubble up from her stomach once more; and someone's stripped the edges so now they're free of tape, just as painful as they'd ever been and now trying to climb out of her chest when she clears her throat; and gives a humorless chuckle. "Stubborn bastard." She clips; her eyes suddenly damp as the image of Jane lying in the shadows of a car, barely alive fills her mind, suddenly and without warning.

She blinks and her eyelashes pull away damp and sticky; her ears ring softly, and she's so overwhelmed by that image – that pale face, the one she'd grown so used to see so full of life, gone as far to call it beautiful when she was truly alone, on the brink of death, that is something that will haunt her for the rest of her life – and she's so overwhelmed by it she's surprised when she hears her brother's voice in her ears, breaking past the muffled gentle hum of her sadness.

"_Reese?"_ Her brother asks; no longer the confidant adult; but instead the child once more, afraid for the life of a loved one.

Everyone seems to be switching roles today.

"Yes?" She asks and her voice cracks; the image of his blood stained vest and dress shirt slams against the edges of her eyes; demanding she feel the terror and oh god, she does sound like the grieving widow.

Including her, she's switched too; and is playing a completely new, unexpected part.

"Are you alright?" He begins to ask the question, but it morphs into a mumble on the last word; she's not alright, at least not physically – emotionally, she will be; undoubtedly, just give her a few hours to sort out the buzzing thoughts in her head. She listens to the silence which is her brother at the moment instead of her thoughts, not wanting to get sucked into them.

Yet.

"_Do you want us to come see you?"_ _Do you want us to be there for support?_

She snorts, genially snorts; "Tommy, Jane's just a consultant and I'm not some sort of grieving widow –"

"_Are you sir the guys gonna pull through? He looked pretty beat up –"_

"Tommy, no I do not need some sort of emotional support through this, and he's fine. He's Jane, he's going to be fine, and so will I. You don't need to worry, alright?"

"_You're doing it again."_

"What?"

"_You're doing your sister voice."_

"My what?"

"_Your sister voice, your, this is the end of the discussion, no more questions, voice." _He chirps and she blinks; her eyes fluttering in shock.

"I do not have a sister voice, Tommy."

"_Uh, yeah you do, Reese."_

"No I don't."

"_You do, sis, you really do."_

She snorts, and promptly stops talking.

"_So, who's Patrick Jane?"_ He asks, and she can hear the smirk in his voice as he speaks.

"He's a consultant for the CBI." She answers, keeping her tone clear of any emotions.

"_Oh come on Reese, give me a bit more than that! I need to see if he's the right man for you_." His tone is teasing, but the blush returns with a small vengeance from its grave.

"Remember the man who gave Annie the day at the spa?"

"_The one who practically shoved me back into the elevator and gave me directions as to where to pick my daughter up and completely ignored me when I asked how he knew my kid?"_

She smiles this time, "Yes, that one." She smiles because that is completely and utterly Jane.

"_Oh."_

Her smile melts just a tiny bit, becoming a comfort on her face; she leans back, slowly uncurling her legs out from underneath her; her legs hum softly as they begin to wake back up, the laceration on her ankle throbs softly; and she fears that she'll soon get a headache to match the tempo. She sighs and leans back against the pillows, "No, but in all seriousness, I'm not in love with Jane."

Her brother remains silent for a few moments; in fact, long enough for her to wonder if he's hung up; long enough for the word, '_Hello?_' to form on the edge of her lips once more; rising to the tip of her tongue.

"_You're lying."_ He responds; satisfaction in his tone, thick and glossing over the two words; his smile has turned into a grin, one so fierce that his lips bend awkwardly around the words; make it hard to get him out.

"No I'm not." She says, frowning slightly.

_She isn't right?_

"_You are. I've known your voice my entire life and I know what it sounds like when you're lying and you're doing it now." _

"But I'm not." She says; her voice soft, much to soft for her liking so she clears her throat, free now of any shards of glass shoving around in her chest for once. "I'm not, Tommy." Her voice is sharp and clear, taking on an almost authoritarian tone.

"_Then you're lying to yourself Reese."_

"I'm done discussing him with you." She cuts him off; half way, being so abrupt she surprises herself; she surprises Tommy even more, given the soft 'okay' that is his answer. She sighs, not wanting to end the conversation like this; "I don't know how I feel about him, alright?"

He smiles. _"See, now you're being honest, doesn't it feel good to get that off your chest?"_

She snorts and finds herself smirking, "Shut up."

That's when she first begins to hear it; a soft ruffle at the edge of the hallway; muffled shouts, she goes rigid in her bed; finding herself waiting for the worse which she realizes a few seconds later what the worst is, what she's waiting for –

Gun shots.

"_Reese?"_ She hears her niece ask after, she doesn't know how long.

"Yes?" Her voice is distant to her own ears.

"_Is everything alright?"_ Her niece's voice is small; concerned. Tiny.

She waits a little longer; her foot begins to hum once more as it drifts to sleep; the cut on her ankle a sharp contrast to the hum, making a small flame burn across her skin.

"I'm fine, it's just – there's something going on in the hallway."

She glances around the room, looking for something – her mind on auto pilot, a weapon, if she needs one and that's when it happens.

The form goes by in a blur; several shouts echoing down the hall and she looks up and catches his eyes through the half opened blinds; the same blue-green, and ironically enough, his face lights up like a Christmas tree; like when you first plug it in; all the colored and white lights are blinding at first, sharp and beautiful, so beautiful in fact you have to look away because they hurt your eyes; and then they dim and you can look at them, even if only for a short while.

And then he's opening her door, striding into the room with that same Christmas tree grin on his face and without knowing it; she swallows, because her hearts in her throat and without warning and then she's speaking without thinking.

"Jane." It comes out like a prayer, on a exhale; she can hear muffled voices coming from the phone, which begins to slide from her grasp; skinning across the palm of her hand, up till the point where she grabs it again, her fingers curling around it like a python would it's meal; like someone drowning in the ocean might hold onto a branch.

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He glances over his shoulder at her; a smile starting at the edges of his lips; he finds himself wishing the hospital's gowns had pockets.

Her gaze turns to a glare and she snorts, shaking her head; before striding forward, far ahead. "Follow me if you want to find Miss Lisbon." Is all she says; and Jane does, picking up his pace to match hers, and they've just rounded a corner.

"_You!"_ There's a pause, "Stop right there!" Another pause, and the shriek is louder this time; the volume increased as if someone's just turned the amp up a few notches. "I mean it!" He spins around and spot's it's owner within seconds, a young Asian woman is weaving through the walls; her hair pulled back in a snarly pony tail, he turns back around and Dr. Grey, Lexie is gone; and nowhere in sight.

He's on his own.

He glances over his shoulder this time, not wanting to waste the energy it takes to turn around completely; and the woman is striding towards him; every footstep like a clap of thunder on the floor. And it's with that sound, he decides that he's got no interest in being caught in that storm; this woman is not like Lisbon, or Dr. Kepner.

This one will rip him to shreds without mercy; so with that thought and despite his better judgment he turns around and does one thing he knows she wasn't even expecting;

He runs.

He runs, and he's already gasping for breath after the first three feet; his now pathetic heart hammering away in his chest; and he's got everything focused on not passing out, and as he rounds the corner he's regretting the decision with such ferocity he considers giving up.

And then of course, this corner holds the row of rooms; and that pushes him to start running again; running because he can hear shouts of his name and the sound of angry footsteps.

He runs by three rooms, all completely useless to him before he finds what he's looking for; he dashes by her room at first, and then he spots her, sitting in the bed; squinting at the blinds, trying to see what all the commotion in the hall is about; and so, he gives her the answer. He skids to a stop and turns, gripping the door and opening it.

She stares at him for a few moments; her mouth drops open slightly; the phone in her hand slips just slightly before her fingers curl around it; he watches as she swallows and continues to stare at him.

"Jane." She clips; her voice careful, free of emotion; tight and crisp and so very Lisbon; and it comes out on the end of a exhale.

He grins at her and ignores the sting at the edges of his eyes when he steps into the room, and by then she's already moving; sliding from the bed, pushing back the covers and sliding to the floor and taking a few steps to meet him; a breeze brushes past him and the doctor who'd had been chasing him; the one with sharp black hair skids to a stop, but she remains silent; watching as he walks into the room and meets her half way.

Normally he would never do this, but normal is far away from them within these hospital walls.

So he does what he's always wanted to do; he pulls her into his arms and doesn't let go.

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And then she's moving, despite the pain throbbing in her leg; she slides from the hospital bed; the blankets uncurling around her as she goes, holding slightly before dropping away uselessly over the edge. She staggers on her first step, just slightly; small enough that she doesn't notice and neither does he; what takes her three strides, only takes him one.

And then she's in his arms; being pulled flush against his chest, in a surprisingly tight embrace; his arms wrapped like pythons across her shoulders and lower back, holding her against him. He's warm and solid and very much alive; giving the gentle thrum of his heart that she can feel against her breast.

Relief blossoms in her own heart, spreading across so swiftly and so violently she fears for a moment that she is going to break down and cry, and then he pulls her tighter against him; and she feels his frame start to shake, and she realizes she can feel his breath; coming in, in short tight gasps against the center of her neck; where he's nestled his head into.

"J-Jane?" She asks softly; her throat feels tight, given that she's got her chin resting on the edge of his shoulder; bending her neck in an awkward, unnatural position and due to the emotions wrapping around her windpipe; a desperate last minute attempt to keep her head from being crushed against his chest. He doesn't answer her. So slowly; she uncurls her arms, just a fraction (surprised by how tightly they'd been wrapped around him in the first place) and rubs small circles in the valley between his shoulder blades.

He pulls away as well, just a fraction and his breathe, now with a bit more control brushes past her ears; so incredibly warm and this is when she realizes something; he's laughing. Shaking silently, laughing so hard that the noise has faded completely; long gone. Her hands still and goes rigid, one resting on each sharp jut of bone. He shakes a bit harder and inhales sharply; and shakes his head, only to squeeze her in a moment and pull her a bit closer. He pauses and she shifts in his arms; pulling away, her hands sliding down to rest somewhere on his ribs.

She feels the frown begin to make itself at home on her forehead as she stares up at him; able to get a clear look at his face now, she notices the beginnings of a bruise on the right side of his face, but doesn't say anything; instead she waits for him to speak.

He doesn't; instead the Christmas tree smile vanishes slowly, creeping away until his lips remain in a tight line; his eyes beginning to lose their light, become dark; making the shadows beneath his eyes ever so obvious; his face looses any mirth and what remains in the aftermath is a hollow shell of the man he'd been moments before.

"Jane?" She asks; her tone confidant now; but with concern lurking just beneath it, her fingertips prod and poke at the bone beneath them; a small pathetic attempt to break the man from his new trance.

It doesn't work.

So instead she's still left staring up at him in a mixture of confusion and concern, and he stares back and for a moment; she swears he's leaning in, head tilting away from its new home in the section of skin between her neck and shoulder and towards her lips as though she posses some new sort of gravity.

"Jane."

And then the moment is over, and doubt of what could have happened is gone in less than a second; someone blew out it's flame, and the two of them separate as the smoke from the moment curls away from the wick of candle and drifts towards the ceiling, and as they uncurl they perform it in flustered movements and embarrassed looks which are casted in different directions to separate corners of the room.

She lifts a hand and scrubs at the bottom of her scalp with her fingertips whilst Jane turns around to face the verdict. She drops her hand and risks a glance in the direction off the doorway; Cho stands there, looking almost; just barely, it lurks beneath the surface; pissed; his expression betraying the tone he'd had when he'd spoken seconds before.

A hopeful Van Pelt stands behind him, leaning just a fraction over his shoulder, Rigsby stands to her right; looking just a bit embarrassed, even more than Jane does.

"You shouldn't have left your room."

He shrugs, looking slightly sheepish; just a bit, but the smirk playing at his lips defies and chance of the expression blooming into something stronger.

"And was it really necessary to send us on a goose chase around three floors?" Cho asks, shifting and crossing his arms now.

His smirk however blossoms into something stronger; a grin spreading across his cheeks; the gleam of something wicked returning to his eyes and any chance of him looking sheepish burns away; he shrugs again, lifting his head from the angle it had been tilted at, looking away from the corner of the room in favor for the trio at the door.

Cho's gaze shifts from the man before him to the woman standing behind him; "Has he said anything to you?"

Lisbon straightens her stance; shedding any and all signs of being embarrassed, "No he hasn't." Her tone is clipped; tight, any trace of concern gone; replaced by something stronger than that. "Why is that?"

Cho shifts where he stands; for a moment looking like he's going to uncross his arms, but he doesn't, instead, he speaks:

"Jane is mute, the neurosurgeon we talked too says it is most likely temporary." She's no longer looking at Cho; instead Jane, who's staring right on back with that oh so serious expression he'd been wearing when he'd begun to lean in. "He's also missing some of his memory."

He watches her go rigid, her already small frame appearing to shrink in on its self and before she can fold up, tuck herself away; so carefully due to years of practice, he stops her; striding over to Rigsby and ripping the pen from his pocket, because of course; the man thought to bring it and he turns, striding back to Lisbon; where he stops, a foot away and his back to the trio at the door.

_No, not that, Teresa, never that._

He writes slowly; the words long, drawn out and curvy; almost beautiful, he pauses and then adds something before handing the notepad over to her.

_Not again._

Her eyes drop to the paper; eyes flitting over the words, once, and then again as she truly reads it.

Then her gaze lifts to meet his; her face is careful, impassive; something he knows she learned from him, but he can see the tidal wave of emotions lurking underneath the surface; filling in every single crack that hasn't been taped over or glued shut with that uncaring look; he learned that from her, how to let your emotions show; how to be honest, how to trust someone, he learned it all over again; from her. She doesn't speak, doesn't say a word.

And for a moment they're both mute.

Mute from the unspoken possibilities of what this could turn into.

But the feeling of endless possibilities, the weightlessness, slowly peels away into dread as he lifts a hand from his side and gently pulls the notepad from her grip, lifting the hand that holds the pen; this time taking no care, putting no precision into the letters that he writes; all the while wishing the entire time, that he didn't have to.

_I forgot the identity of Red John._

The letters begin to fade on the 'e', the bottom and final line of the letter is dotted with ink, instead of the same steady stroke the others are created with; the following letters are a companion to the destroyed 'e', a matching set to this mistake; all streaks of bleeding out and run dry ink, the word 'John' being nothing more than a indent, free of anything to mark it into the paper with the exception of the lines that the pen tip created from pressing into the paper, the period being a sharp little blank jab, a crevasse.

She only needs to read it once, her eyes flicker back up to him; and this time the mask is clear, only for him to see; given how the view of anything intimate is blocked by his back, stopping the trio at the door from seeing anything.

He can see the distant horror in those beautiful eyes, right on the edges of her pupils and somehow not quite where the sharp green color begins; instead, in the in-between where the gray resides. The worry that he'd pretended not to see for years, now sharp in the gentle lines of her face; he can see the righteous anger at the edges of her eyes, tucked away in the small red veins that dance within the whites; it's also tucked away in the tight line of her lips.

He goes to write once more; and again the pen comes up dry, and part of him would like to try it; but he doubts Lisbon is fluent in sign language; so instead, he turns and moves to toss the pen and notepad back to Rigsby.

He'll admit later maybe he shouldn't have used his right arm.

But only to himself.

The pain is what causes him to pass out; the sharp explosion on the inside of his bicep, and for a moment he swears he's back in that murky car, instead of the warm open hospital room, standing besides Lisbon.

She's left to watch once more as his eyes roll back into his head and he starts to sinks to his knees; surprisingly, in the deathly silence that ticks for a few seconds, before everyone's moving she swears she can hear something rip.

She moves first, feet sliding on the floor as she shifts to grab his left arm; the good one, and then she's falling to the floor with him; legs trapped by the pull of gravity when he falls and she shifts, landing in a somewhat capable position as his body settles on the floor, her fingers already moving to his right bicep; ignoring the awkward way she leans across him.

Her palms of both hands press against the re-opened wound in seconds; which quickly becomes a harsh reminder to her new reality.

Injury doesn't give any warning.

It just happens.

There's a scuffle at the door, and she doesn't look up; she keeps her eyes trained on the wound; on the sharp crimson that is quickly staining her hands.

"Damn it."

She looks up and see's Cristina sitting across from her, she tosses her head back and shouts; "You –" It's unclear who _you_ is, "Go get some bandages from the nurses cart, there's one right around the corner."

Rigsby is the first to move; and return within seconds, ripping open the package and handing the eerily white bandages to her.

Cristina, without turning back to look; grabs them and then she leans in; her fingers dancing across the tops of Lisbon's hands. "Move." She growls, and it takes a moment, Lisbon's head snaps up; and she's suddenly face to face with the woman; and something unspoken passes between them, it's just a blip, like the splash of color you get when you turn on the TV and suddenly in the fraction of a second change your mind and turn it off; or, when you press the power button twice by mistake and it does that anyhow.

Understanding; that they're both here for incredibly different reasons, but here none the less.

And then she moves her hands, drawing them slowly away; fingertips skipping over the tops of his bicep and only drawing back enough to get to the center of his chest; where she then yanks her hands back into her lap, watching as Christina curls the bandages up and presses them neatly in the space between his bicep and side; just below his armpit. Her fingers digging in and pressing tight against the wound, "Someone get me a nurse!" She snaps, and Lisbon would do it; if she could but her legs are numb beneath her, useless, pathetic again.

She's thankful that the colors and shapes in front of her remain sharp, and she clings to that; she's watching through glass though when Cristina's head snaps up again, and the glass cracks and falls when Cristina catches her eyes and holds her gaze.

"Someone help her up." She growls; her tone less harsh now than before, and then her head drops again; focusing on the wound whilst one hand snatches up more bandages from the floor besides her, where she then presses them against it.

Suddenly she's being lifted up; despite how she stumbles in the movement; a shock of electricity zipping through her right foot. She doesn't even bother to respond to the owner of the hands gripping her elbows, instead her gaze remains focused on Jane; and she watches as his eyes flutter; dull and far away.

He blinks a few times, and it takes a few moments for his eyelids to separate and then as his chest rises his gaze seems to clear. His eyes scan the room, stuck to the ceiling once more and then his head tilts to the left and he catches her gaze.

All she see's in his eyes is the look of failure; disappointment, but in who?

Her or himself?

If it's for either one of them, that brings on another question; why?

His eyes drop to her hands; which are starting to cool, despite the fact they're covered in blood, and her palms seem to pulse with her own blood; and that look morphs into a deeper version of disappointment and his gaze flickers back up her body before he turns to the ceiling once more.

And when he blinks again; all she can do is watch as his eyes glaze over and wonder what the hell is possibly going through his head.

She never gets the chance to ask him either, because within a few minutes he's gone; and she's left wondering what the hell happened.

"Boss," The voice is soft; gentle against her ears, and for a moment she thinks of Jane; but then it tugs her back, away from the cage that her mind is slowly becoming; buzzing with thoughts that keep her imprisoned.

She turns, and she's face to face with Van Pelt.

"Let's get you cleaned up."

And as the younger agent leads her in the direction of the bathroom and she see's from the corner of her eyes as Rigsby picks up the long forgotten plastic hospital phone from the bed and raise it to his ear; she watches him speak, even though she can' hear anything, and she watches up until the moment he hangs up, and then she turns around and walks into the bathroom, wishing she didn't have to lean on Van Pelt, but her ankle's throbbing too much for her not too.

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Her team is surprisingly gentle in the aftermath of it all. Rigsby, Cho and Cristina have vanished without a word by the time the last crimson drop has trickled down her index finger and into the sink; following in Jane's wake.

She dry's her hands and Van Pelt moves from where she leans against the door frame; moving to help Lisbon back to the hospital bed, but the woman shakes her off, moving away in favor of walking to the bed herself.

And she can't help but let out the sigh of relief when she finally reaches the bed on the other side of the room; and this time she lets the younger agent help her into the bed; but she's the one who pulls the blankets up and around her, then she looks back up at Grace.

"Shouldn't we discuss what's going on?"

Grace looks a tiny bit surprised, maybe a little bit afraid, "Well, what's going on?" She asks; her tone is careful, like she's treading on glass.

"Jane can't remember who Red John is."

That tiny afraid look vanishes like someone's just snuffed out it's flame, and when she speaks again her tone is confidant, strong; independent. "You don't need to worry about that yet –"

"Don't need to worry about it –"She begins, growling; shock floods her veins and anger starts to trickle in.

"We've got plenty of time," She snaps; with the same amount of fire, which is enough to wipe out Lisbon's own flame. "We've got plenty of time to sort this out. It's not like we can go anywhere if we don't have a suspect; which Jane has forgotten and because of that we don't have any info we didn't already know." Her own flame in her voice dies slowly, softly, and by the time she finishes speaking its gone completely.

"Alright." Lisbon says after an eternity of silence.

Grace smiles at her with her own Christmas tree smile and turns to go; "Get some sleep, Boss. We can sort this out tomorrow; it's been a long day." And before Lisbon can respond the agent is gone; though not completely, she can see Grace's silhouette casted on the now closed blinds on the front window of the wall before her.

With that sight in mind she turns, and curls into a tight ball, tucking the blankets around her and she shuts her eyes.

But in the end it takes a while for sleep to find her.

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When she wakes up she doesn't bother to look at the clock; instead, she watches the different shades of blue dance across the hospital walls as cars go speeding by; watches them dip from the rich deep blue to the lightest shade that's so close to white and then back again.

She listens to the sound of car horns honking and the very distant muffled noise of thousands of voices, the clock ticking so loudly in the room, and then she hears it.

She hears it over the sound of the clock, the car horns; and the muffled voices.

Someone's running.

And given what she'd seen earlier that day; she can line up the two noises and come to one conclusion; it isn't Jane who's running.

And just as she figures that out, she hears the first shout; followed by a gunshot, and several more.

She freezes in her bed; going rigid, despite how her muscles scream in protests at her new stance; the way her sutures pull at the seams of her skin, the way her head begins to throb with a sharp migraine. Panic starts to build at the base of her spine and it's getting hard to breathe; and then the footsteps begin to get closer; no warning, it just happens and there's nothing she can do.

She swallows down the metallic venom that wells up from her tongue, and shifts in the bed; carefully uncurling her legs out from underneath her, and then pressing her face into the pillows; in the wake of that she closes her eyes and works on steadying her breathing, trying to prevent it from coming in, in frantic gasps.

The footsteps stop.

Right outside her door; and she inhales, letting it out slowly.

Her breathe hitches when the door knob makes a little click, and begins to turn; but she tells herself to breathe, to think of better things; to not to try to contemplate who's been shot; she focuses on her brother and niece, on the memories that hold smiles and laughter for her team. She focuses on the way Jane had looked at her today; with something that she'd rather not name; obvious as the cars casting shadows on her walls; in his eyes.

The door knob clicks again, and she hears the sharp snap as the door itself is slotted back into its frame; and in the aftermath the room is painted the almost-white shade of blue as cars streak by once more; only this time, the sight isn't bringing comfort, instead it's giving her the light she needs to see, along with a bit of fear because she _can_ see; no need to hide in her hospital bed anymore. She waits again for the white again, putting it off (going into the hall), and then; in the aftermath of that car, she allows herself to breathe; sucking in lungful of air and deciding she must face the inedible.

She allows herself to breathe, but she doesn't allow herself to cry; and she won't. She decides that as she slides down from the bed, shoving the blankets away and once her feet touch the cold tiled floor she moves swiftly; keeping on her toes and the balls of her feet.

She opens the door; pushing through the soft click of the door knob and the creak it makes when she opens it, peaking out into the hall, she opens it just enough to slide through; moving with grace she hasn't had since she was a teenager. She doesn't bother to shut the door, a percasion; instead she walks; heading for the well lit hallway to the left.

She rounds the corner and see's the first body; a nurse, face down, she's faceless; shot in the shoulder, she's careful to step around the steady forming pool of blood; but her throat tightens anyway. She looks away; and keeps walking, increasing her pace, and ignoring her limp, any form of grace she had earlier is gone now; having died at the nurse.

She spots Grace and Rigsby next; the red headed woman tossed like a rag doll against the left wall; shoved between a nurses cart and a bin, Rigsby lays sprawled out in the center of the hall, ironically enough, his hands; everything about him is pointed in the direction of Grace.

A last act of dedication for the woman he loves.

_Loved_.

She can't however be careful with the strangled noise that rips from her throat at the sight of Grace's pale eyes and expressionless face staring past her; a low wail of horror, and then she moves; ignoring the tears falling from her eyes as she rushes forward, falling to her knees at Grace's side, pressing two fingers to the woman's neck.

Nothing.

Hyperventilating now she moves to Rigsby, frantic movements, and presses two (now bloody) fingers to his neck.

Nothing.

Her hands crawl back to her lap like wounded and ashamed dogs; she curls in on herself; her shoulder blades hitching, her back bending and she ignores all the pain that floods her system; and she lets herself cry in front of the bodies of the members of her team.

She hears the shuffling before she sees it; and she doesn't bother to move when she sees the large shadows bathe the light pink titled floor down the hall.

She just sits; blood from Grace beginning to lap at her calf.

She lifts her head slowly; thick locks of chestnut hair blocking and corrupting her vision, but she doesn't move to clear it; for she knows she'd get her hair bloody, and that would only prove this to be real.

She doesn't want that.

She watches as Jane is shoved into view, and then shoved again; closer to her, he enters the light and his features are bathed in it, the pathetic white light coming from the half alive bulb above his head; it makes the shadows and lines more obvious in his face, casting his hair a shade of brown with the exception of gold along it's edges.

He stares at her and she stares right on back; her eyes drifting across his chest, looking at the light blue of his hospital night gown; distantly she compares the color to the forever changing ones of her room.

And then Red John walks into view, taking long strides; he smiles at her like the devil she'd learned about in Sunday school. She doesn't stare at him.

Instead she glares at him with every ounce of hate she can conquer up.

He grins at her, and she resists the urge to vomit at the look. The grin only grows as without warning he shoves Jane to the nearest wall, the man stumbles; falling over a nurses cart, and then hitting his head on the other side with a sickening crack; her eyes follow him, frantic; and she watches as the blood begins to pool from his head; but his eyes remain trained on her, holding her gaze.

"Lisbon." He says, his voice ragged; his breathing coming in the form of rasps, it sounds like he's trying to talk and breathe around a mouthful of razor blades and broken glass.

All she can do is offer him a whimper of a response.

She turns to face Red John.

She doesn't glare at him.

Instead she looks at him with what she imagines how a deer looks when you catch it in the lights of your car, before the moment when it accepts death and stops trying to run away.

She's a deer caught in the head lights and Red John is the car that's about to run her over.

She watches as the man begins to lift the gun from his side, and suddenly something sparks inside of her at that sight; crackling angrily and then exploding. She jumps to her feet in a rush, she feels the staples loosen on her ankle with the swift movement and dig into the pink sensitive flesh surrounding the wound, and she ignores the sharp pain; in fact it only makes it easier to see, she shoves her hair back from her face and runs.

However she doesn't run away, she runs towards him.

She tackles him; he falls back, gravity tugging the two of them over; she straddles him, the flame within her chest snarls around, burning everything it can reach; anything it touches; her heart goes up in flames, burning with the bodies of her team. She hears and ignores Jane's terrified shouts from behind her as she moves, her hands extending toward his, Red John's, neck.

And then he douses the flames with ice as the gun clicks and presses against her forehead, her gaze lifts moves upwards to look at the bottom of the gun. She looks back down at him and Red John smiles at her; something eerily close to that small smile Jane gives her every day, in random moments; as though the sight of her is enough to bring it forward from within him.

Correction, _gave_ her every day.

The gun fires; and the bullet rips through her head, that's her last thought, the way Jane smiles at her everyday; and the last thing she hears is Jane's terrified shouts.

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She wakes up with her own shout dying on her lips; her skin glossed over with a thick layer of sweat, her chest heaving as she attempts to breathe, a sort of strangled noise escaping in the desperate process. She sinks her teeth into her lip and swallows down the venom building up on her tongue; that, the blood in her mouth was real; everything else however wasn't.

Or at least she thought, and in a moment of panic her hands fly up to her forehead; meeting smooth skin drenched in sweat, no bandages, no bullet hole.

It was just a nightmare.

She sucks in another breathe; attempting to fill her lungs with oxygen and failing completely, she shakes and moves her legs, curling them out from underneath her and pulling them up to her chest; she wraps her arms around them. She sucks in another breathe; flinching at how the air is brumal in her mouth, and she tries not to cry; tries not to think of the very real images of the body of her team.

She'd had dreams like this before, normally just about Jane (lying below a red smiley face, sometimes even below the one that had been painted with his wife and child's blood, and that smiley had just been recoated with his blood); but then, even then, they'd never been this brutal.

She lifts her hands and scrubs away without mercy on the tears at her cheeks and she uncurls her legs, and shoves back the blankets.

She walks from the room on unsteady legs; past the sleeping form of Grace in the chair outside her room, she relaxes slightly at the sight of the sleeping agent, feeling some of her irrational fear trickle away and fade, and she then heads for the elevator.

She steps inside, and presses the button for the fifth floor. The doors slide shut with a gentle hiss and the small room jerks as it begins to rise, pausing on the fourth floor so a woman dressed in light blue scrubs can enter; she presses the button for the second floor, the doors slide shut once more and she begins tug a elastic from her hair and the elevator begins to ascend once more.

Lisbon shifts in her spot, her hands fluttering up and curling around her own elbows.

Then the intern glances her way; does a double take, and with a concern tone that could rival Dr. Kepner's she speaks, "Are – Are you okay?" She turns to face her.

Lisbon moves, shifting subconsciously away and at the same time lifting a hand to scrub at her eyes. "I'm fine." She clips her voice taunt and tight; the kind she normally reserves for the CBI. She clears her throat and speaks again; aiming for something that sounds a bit more human and less metalic. "I just – I had a nightmare."

The woman tilts her head slightly; her tone is gentle, soft and small and kind; the complete opposite of Lisbon's at the given moment. "Do – do you wanna talk about it?"

She shakes her head and the elevator shakes too; getting closer to her destination, "No thank you." She answers, pausing before speaking again; having to swallow down the fresh blood in her mouth "But um," She clears her throat and blinks fiercely. "Do you think you could point me in the direction of the ICU?" She thinks distantly that she should have probably checked the time; but she'd left in such a rush she couldn't bring herself to care at the moment.

A look of realization washes over the woman's face. "You're looking for Patrick Jane?" She asks.

And all Lisbon can do is nod.

The woman pauses, frowning slightly; "You're Teresa Lisbon, then, right?"

She nods again; and doesn't ask how the woman knows.

She normally would have.

But normal died with the scream on her lips when she woke up from a nightmare about her team laying dead in the halls of this hospital.

The elevator dings and she steps out; the intern follows, her hand grazing past Lisbon's elbow as she walks past. "Just follow me, if you wanna find Mr. Jane."

They round a corner; and spot Cho, who surprisingly, isn't asleep; but instead reading a book, the book light casing a faint sharp halo around his form, and creating dark and strangely shaped shadows in the area surrounding him. The unnamed intern stops a few feet in front of her and turns, towards the unlabeled door; well, it's got a label, it's just too dark to read.

"Normally people aren't allowed in the ICU after six," She's speaking in a hushed whisper and Lisbon draws her gaze away from Cho further down the hall and instead watches as the intern pulls a key from her pocket and unlocks the door. "But I think you'd be an exception, given you're a cop."

She's been with Patrick Jane long enough to be able to tell that's a lie.

She whispers a thanks as the intern steps aside and lets her into the room, and the same woman shuts the door behind her; it shuts with a soft click.

She keeps her gaze on the floor up until an unknown point; and then she lifts her head, looking at the sleeping form of Patrick Jane, and she walks around to the left side of the bed when something catches her eye.

A note, scribbled down on an 8 by 11 piece of paper in big letters is tapped to the edge of the bed, resting a few inches from Jane's feet;

_STOP USING BIOFEEDBACK._

_DR. YANG STATES SHE DOESN'T KNOW THE EFFECTS IT COULD HAVE ON YOUR HEART'S CONDITION._

_STOP IT, JANE OR I WILL LET HER SKIN YOU ALIVE._

Its Cho's hand writing, she knows that and it brings a small smile to her face; she turns away from the note in favor of the skyline.

Although at the moment, the skyline is created souly by the lights casted by street lamps and well lit buildings and enormous ads attached to the well lit buildings, and the cars on the street below. The night sky itself is completely dark; without a single star in sight, and the only object in the sky being the moon and the occasional plane or helicopter.

She glances at the bedside electrical clock with a small amount of hesitation.

2:23 AM.

She stares until the clock ticks to the next minute; the last digit changing in a moment's notice, leaving a faint green echo of the line beneath it.

She looks away; back towards the skyline and moves a chair closer to his bedside; and then lowers herself into the chair.

At some unknown point in the night she reaches out and takes his hand; she has to settle for holding three of his digits, because honestly he's got such big hands.

She thinks of what Grace had said earlier in the night as she stares out the window; watching the colors slowly bleed into the night over the passing hours as time drains away; racing towards the morning, she never once looks back at the clock, or at the man in the hospital bed, whose hand she's holding, and she doesn't think about what that means.

It's a good thing they've got plenty of time because she's going to need it.

For many different reasons.

She stays until the sun rises; until the edges of the city blur with the morning sun, and their colors become a faint mask of gray rather than the sharp deep rich blue they had been in the night; she stays and watched the clouds slowly form and pull from some place unknown as they take their places in the baby blue and pink sky.

She stays until the sunrise; and after words.

Never once turning her gaze from the beautiful view before her.

Never once shutting her eyes longer than what it takes to blink.

Never once letting go of Jane's hand.

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AN'S:

Woah, second chapter. Yay and the ending of Day 1 in the hospital.

I'm still testing the water with this, and I cannot thank you enough for all the reviews, and I can tell I'll struggle with this; I've got a plot, just nothing for the in-between, so the support from the review's means a lot to me.

And in case it was unclear Jane was using Biofeedback to walk about; otherwise he never could have left the hospital bed, given that he was shot in the chest; and he probably won't be doing that anytime again.

Anyhow, I'd like to respond to some of the reviews; and by some I mean all, and I'll be starting from the first one to the newest one.

**Pellegrina**: Your review meant the world to me, and yes; Jane being mute is one of my favorite aspects for this story, and hopefully in further chapters the big pink elephant will be addressed because it's not like anyone can ignore it now. And as far as RJ goes, you'll just have to wait and see!

**Guest #1: **Thanks so much! Glad to know you thought it was brilliant! And I agree with you 100% on long chapters, they truly do make for the best plot (I personally recommend Lavinia, a fanfiction by Nerwen Aldarion if you want something long and believable to read, however I warn you it gets pretty dark.)

**Anjie: **Thank you and ironically enough I am a painter, which leads me to doubt my writing ability but I guess I really shouldn't thank you again and yes, this story will continue.

**klcarr892: **Thank you, that really means a lot.

**Guest # 2: **Yes, Grey's is truly a great show, isn't it? For those of you who haven't watched it, I recommend it! (If anyone's curious the reason this isn't listed as a cross over is because you won't be seeing it from the doctor's prospective at all)

**dancingthrough: **Thank you so much and good to know! I'll make sure to keep the updates steady then!

**nic73**: Thank you 3.

**MissDonnie**: Good to know! It's just I've seen people complain about length and I was a bit hesitant to posting because of it, and thank you for the compliment.

**Anon**: I will keep going! So don't you worry, and yes, I was quite happy about being able to tie Grey's into this. The show holds a very special place in my heart.

**Sonseeahray: **Intrusting username, btw and I'll continue this, thanks for the compliment!

**xanderseye: **Glad you enjoyed it, and I will continue.

**Negev bunk: **Glad you loved it! And I will continue

**Guest # 3: **I will continue, so don't worry!

**GyMusicAddict: **Thank you and I will continue it, I enjoy writing Lisbon going into shock, it was almost comforting for me for some reason and good to know it's believable, I always take that into writing, I want the reader to be able to imagine the character going through the actions but I'm so glad this was believable.

**wantingmore: **I'm glad you like the way I write scene's, that means a lot to me, and I learned a long time ago sugar coating trauma, emotional or physical makes it worse; so much worse in the end and it turns it into a ugly thing when you do. So I tried very hard not to, though I am worried I'm playing on it too much with this chapter and yes, more Jisbon to come, really glad you enjoyed the "I love you".

**DSPallas: **Thank you, it really means a lot that it's okay to write something incredibly long, and it means a lot that you think this is well written glad to know it holds all the things I was aiming for; and I will continue so don't worry!

**CheSanzGalileii: **I'm touched that this story took your breath away and brought you to a happy place

Thanks for reading, and let me know if this chapter was as good as the first one.


	3. Assess the damage and find the evidence

Tonight, his demons don't take their faces, instead, he's left with a murky brown; with the occasional swirl of midnight blue mixed on top of the backdrop; and topped off the red hue that originates from the center of that now dried smiley face on his bedroom wall.

However they do take their voices; he can hear is daughters laugh the happy; pure, full of life sound; tamped down and covered with the thin tape of the knowledge that he'll never hear it again, and that he was the one who caused its silence. He hears his wife, hissing in his ears; about how much she hates him, why did he have to do this? That it's his fault that they're dead.

That he failed to get vengeance as well, and bring them to justice when he had the chance.

He had faced Red John and _he_ was the one who nearly died.

That's when he feels it, it catches him like a safety net, stopping his spiral downwards on the spot; the limp weight in his hand, the small puff of air that brushes across his eyes and chases away the murky brown; someone's dumped untainted water, into the tainted murky water of his mind; it spirals, twisting and curling; chasing away the dark colors and refilling their place with a calming sort of light.

And in the light; his mind clears, nightmares chased back, banished to the shadows where they originated from, and the shadows vanish completely as he opens his eyes; his visions blurred at first but then the almost grey lumps before him clear and he spots his own feet underneath the thin hospital blanket.

And then he spots the note; scrawled in Cho's recognizable hand writing, placed gingerly at the end of the bed; and he finds himself smiling at it, noting the use of _Dr. Yang_ and tucking the info away later for possible questioning.

Then he feels the puff of air drift across his face once more and his eyes flick to the side and a moment later he turns his head, finding himself nose to nose with Teresa Lisbon.

She's beautiful, alluring, angelic, exquisite and comely. That's what comes to mind at the sight of her; she's divine; she looks completely at peace.

All those words come to mind as he looks at her in the morning sun; which is casting and dappling across her face; giving her a warm glow, granting her hair a chestnut-lining; highlighting the very few freckles across her face.

He watches her eyes twitch underneath her eyelids; watches her lips part as she inhales, and then he lets his gaze drift; his smile grows as he notices how she's slanted over the wooden chair pulled up to the bed; her body looking as though it had been dragged out of the chair and the person who was doing the dragging just suddenly gave up and left her that way.

He pushes himself to sit, squirming on the bed; leaning away from her and with every intention of moving her, and he goes to lift his hands and that's when it happens; suddenly he's looking at her and then his vision sways; tossing towards the ceiling and he's on his back once more, gasping for breath; trying to breathe around the thing wrapped around his ribs and squeezing; pushing and shoving violently against his ribs and any attempt to get oxygen into his lungs is failing, and everything's blurred; a disgusting yellow color, tainted brown.

Then it's dark.

His eyes flutter open once more and through a wall of glass he watches as Cho races into the room, to his bedside; and presses the button above the bed. His vision has cleared by the time the man's arm pulls back; with the exception of the greenish, yellow halo following Cho's form as he moves about the room. His eyes flutter shut again, his mind is reeling; turning to the side and falling off the edge and with this feeling his head falls back against the pillows; it's too heavy to hold up.

"Jane."

"Jane! Jane, wake up!"

"Damn it, Jane, wake up!"

The voices are muffled; thick and sloppy in his ears and far away.

He inhales sharply a few seconds later, after the sharp constant beating against his ears becomes too much; and Cho's face swims in a about a foot away from is, he's glaring at him; but he can see the raw relief hidden and tucked away in the other mans eyes. He holds onto that, clinging to Cho's gaze as he steps back, moving away and letting the nurse take his position. He swallows and goes to speak; his tongue heavy in his mouth, his throat is swollen.

"She's fine." Is all Cho says, and then; he doesn't have to speak because he's got his answer.

"She never woke up."

That's when the darkness swoops in again; covering him like a blanket without warning, and he doesn't even get to feel the air settle and vanish as the blanket drops down; one second it's there, and then it's gone.

The last thing he hears is the voices of panicked nurses.

He always found it kind of ironic how Doctors and Nurses always portrayed a calm and collected character, but in reality on the inside they're just as scared as everyone else and it's only in the really terrifying moments does that truth come forth.

So he guesses he should be worried; because if they're panicking that mean's only one thing.

He's dying.

And if he survives he isn't getting any better any time soon.

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Life's like a car crash.

That's what she's thinking when she turns her head and looks at her mother; and the thought that follows is that the woman behind the wheel is so beautiful, with the smile tugging at the corners of her lips; her hair cradling her face; dark streaks capturing some of the thick locks but still holding a chestnut colored halo around the edges. Her blue-green eyes are sparkling in the morning sun that's streaming in through the half-opened window.

She's so busy focusing on her mother's face; she jumps a little in her seat when her voice suddenly fills the car, after the soft crackle of the radio turning on. The music that follows makes the small vehicle thrive with life and unadulterated joy.

The woman behind the wheel is singing along to the radio within seconds of it being turned on, grasping onto the lyrics with greed and learning the rhythm in a couple of heart beats; and her head swivels as she turns to look at her daughter. "Oh, common Reese!" She smirks, and then chuckles, still smiling. "Sing along, no need to be shy." She grins at her; teeth pristine, a sharp white flash before she turns back to the road; the smile filled to the brim with star dust still on her face; and as she faces the road once more it fades, just a fraction, though.

She continues humming, keeping perfect pitch and tone with the song drifting through the speakers, her hair whipping around her head and neck by the small breeze coming in through the window.

Teresa Lisbon opens her mouth then, joining her mother's hum for a few moments to test the water of the song before singing along; the words are soapy in her mouth for the first few seconds and then the soap nestle in the back of her throat and all that's left to flow out is the words; and they do, like water out of a facet.

Her mother turns to her once more; the smile lighting up her features. "That's my girl." She grins, and looks at the road once more.

This time the star dust smile turns to ash within a moment; the music stops and is replaced by a screeching sound that she can only seem to associate with death now.

The screech of wheels as the car across the lane is unable to stop; its breaks giving out, and smashing into the car that holds her, and becomes her mother's deathbed on the spot.

The screech of wheels to keep from crashing into the car the holds the life of the most important person inher life.

The screech vanishes when she's thrown through the wind shield, and the music returns as she rolls down the hood of the car; her body changing, she's no longer twelve and ignorant of the world's horrors, she is no longer wearing a thin summer cotton dress her mother had insisted that she wear.

Instead, as she falls from the hood of the car she is a woman; Thirty eight with full breasts and curves, and instead of the thin summer cotton dress, she's wearing a pair of dark blue jeans and a white button up with its selves rolled up; on top of that, a bullet proof vest. Her hair is no longer cropped either; it's long and flowing, but at the moment pulled back into a pony tail.

That's when she hits the sand.

She scrambles at first; her shoe-less feet skidding along the grains of sand, which are in possibly hot; and then she spits out the first mouth full of the grain and somehow she finds the strength to stand and she does; she stands and looks around.

And as she stands she feels the wind whipping at her back first; plucking, prodding gently and then it picks up; nicking at her arms and brushing her hair away from her shoulders; in favor of lifting it up and having it flow gently in the air.

That's when she hears the music again, far away and distant; a sharp and almost a metallic sound but not too muffled for her not to be able to make it out and as she turns away from the deep blue, rich ocean; away from the sound, because she knows what it is now; the same one she listened too while dancing with her mother in the kitchen in the glow of the setting sun, and the same song to which she would years later dance to with a man who would come to mean the world to her.

And as she turns her head; she spots him, about thirty feet away.

And then she's running.

Her feet sliding on the sand; arms waving at her sides in desperate attempts to steady herself, which she does, a few seconds later and she's able to run at a steady pase and as she crosses the short distant he turns; his darkened silhouette fading and becoming more clear; color bleeding into it, the black fades to gray; which becomes detailed, she can make out where his jacket ends and the vest underneath, which is unbuttoned, begins.

The sun becomes stronger and she spots the white cotton shirt he's wearing underneath the comfortable recognizable gray vest; it's made from the same material as the dress she'd been wearing moments before.

He smiles at her; not the Christmas tree grin, but rather a gentle smile; somewhere between the small one he gives her every day and the Christmas tree grin; a smile filled with star dust. He turns around completely and the sun gives him a silver lining, casting a new light in those sharp blue-green eyes.

She stops before him; digging her toes into the sand; which is no longer like a flames on the bottoms of her feet.

She blinks away the tears that have suddenly formed at the edges of her eyes as she stares up at him, and ignores she stab in her heart at the peaceful look and posture of the man before her; and he just continues to smile at her, but that star dust look as turned into something different.

"I know." He says suddenly; nodding slightly, his lips bending and moving around the words; the smile drops, but just a fraction, but it remains.

She frowns up at him; swallowing and trying to ignore the way the frown on her forehead hurts. She blinks more fiercely, attempting to dispel the tears. "You know what?" She asks; almost croaking out the question, the words feel like razor blades climbing up her throat; every word painful, and difficult to get out her swollen throat.

She blinks again and a few tears trickle down her cheeks.

Why is she even crying? She can't get past the deep rooted hurt she's feeling.

She pauses for a moment; she knows why, Jane would never become this care-free joyous man before her; and she was grieving over that fact.

And he knows this too.

The stardust smile drops, as if in this moment he has just shared the same revelation; but doesn't turn to ash; instead his lips become a steady thin line on his face. "I just know, Teresa." He tells her, lifting up a hand and whipping away the tears as he steps forward. Only to step back a few seconds later; his right hand drifting down her arm, and stopping at her hand, before he pulls away; turning and walking away.

"Wait." She tells him, her throat's swelling dipping down; fading away. "Wait, Jane." She says louder this time, blinking away the tears and ignoring how they trail sloppily down her face; her hands fluttering up and tucking her wild hair behind her ears.

And he does; he stops, and turns and smiles.

It's not the Christmas tree grin, or the stardust smile, or the one he gives her every day.

It's the one he gave her before he walked out of her life for half a year.

"You're sweet." He tells her.

And she expects him to look away; to drop her gaze and disappear; to be swallowed up into a bottomless pit by the sand or to turn around and walk away once more; but he doesn't, instead he does something she would never expect of Patrick Jane.

He holds out his hand.

She'd stopped a few inches away this time; not knowing when she'd run to catch up to him again and not bothering to try to figure out when she did, instead she looks down at the hand in question and then back up at him; taking in the blank look with underlying consideration.

Then she looks back down at his hand; which is spread open wide, his fingers wiggle and that brings a soft soothing laugh from her lips; which lays down bandages on top of her sliced up throat, due to the razor blades.

She takes his hand; it's warm, and solid and so very large around her own.

He turns; pulling her along, and they begin to walk step by step down the endless beach; the wind whipping at her clothes, snapping the fabric back and forth into unnatural shapes and positions before gently allowing it to flow in the air without the noises. Their hair gnarly masses around their heads.

There's a snap at some point in time which she assumes was the clothes once more, only to be proven wrong a few moments later as Jane's suddenly on the ground; a bullet in his head and bleeding out onto the sand.

She stares at his face; eyes wide, and his face expressionless.

This is the man he is, and would be; not some pathetic joyous copy.

She turns towards the sky; squinting, and then a few moments later there's another snap and she's down beside him, bleeding out onto the sand.

He smiles at her; the pure star dust smile resurfacing once more; his eyes squinting in the sunlight, blood trickling down the bridge of his cheek and pooling in the spot where the center of his nose is; creating a dark contrast between his eyes and the dark crimson on his face.

She says something to him; but her words are muffled to her own ears and her tongue is heavy as she speaks.

She doesn't get a reply.

He doesn't move again; just continues staring at her.

Life's like a car crash because things happen, they happen and sometimes you see them coming; in few precious moments you know they are going to happen; and that there's nothing you can do, the breaks won't work and you are going to be crushed by the drunk driver speeding towards you no matter what you do; you can't stop it. You can't make the breaks work.

Or other times the car sneaks up behind you, and you're blissfully unaware of what's coming up until the moment of impact, and in the aftermath you're super aware of what's going on around you.

Life's like a car crash, but then so is falling love.

You can't stop either.

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The very first thing she sees when she opens her eye is the backside of a nurse dressed in light blue scrubs and this prompts her to move; pushing away from the chair as she goes to sit up, ignoring the way her muscles scream and then she sees the mob of them; all swarming around the bed.

Her gaze falls and she sees the dark gray drag marks on the sharp white floor; she lifts her head once more and she spots him; between the incredibly small gaps created by two nurse's sides.

He's laid back; mouth open wide, with a tube shoved down his throat. His skin is the complete opposite of what it had been when she'd fallen asleep; instead of a creamy color with a pink hue; now it matched something closer to white, something closer to the floor beneath her feet.

It's a disgusting shade.

The only color in his face is gauged underneath his eyes; a dark smeared purple, dragging across and down his features before vanishing completely; his eyes are glossed over and pinned on the ceiling, and without knowing it; in moments she's on her feet, stumbling back and at the same time gripping the arm of the chair for support, so she doesn't go too far back, so she can step forward when she needs too.

"What happened?"

She's speaking, but her voice is distant; hollow and weak to her own ears, and very small. She blinks; the sight before her blurring, and she lifts a hand to scrub at her eyes; and when she does, the small, steady beeping in the room turn to an angry blare and promptly cuts out.

By the time her hand drops; her knuckles skimming across her cheek, Cho's at her side, moving slightly to stand in front of her; to protect her from the hideous sight happening before her with his ever impassive expression and because of it she thinks distantly of a adult, lying to their child about a tragic accident.

His strong expression and calm tone don't stop the noises, and as he continues to speak his tone rising with every word, can't cut out the noise of the paddles uncurling, the cords stretching; and the angry ragged noise of the electricity pumping through them as they press against his chest.

He can't block out the thump of Jane's body hitting cold thin bed sheets.

She swallows and her fingers curl around the chair's arm, she can see the wave of nurse's shift; she knows what's coming next, they're going to try a few times and then call it, so it either works now; or it doesn't and he's gone for good.

She pushes away from the chair with that revelation; the legs scrapping against the floor and moves, not stumbling this time, but with a sort of grace that comes with being oblivious to your surroundings, she steps around Cho. Moving to one of the few gaps in the wall of nurses and stops there, keeping her eyes trained on the visible parts of Jane, and she watches as they shift in gentle waves, up until the moment they press the paddles against his chest and call it, yelling out douses for medicine and the electricity that's needed.

She watches as his chest jerks upwards, and he falls back.

"What happened?"

"Cardiac arrest." Cho answers from the left, a few steps behind her; his tone is fresh, new, despite the fact she knows he had tried to explain it to her moment before; she's thankful for it.

The nurses pull away then; stripping back in clumps, to reveal her nightmare in a new twisted for of reality; Jane's lifeless body on the bed; a tube crammed down his throat. She blinks; and suddenly she's watching it all through a slate of glass, and the glass is fogging over, cracking as one of the nurses moves and pulls the tube from his throat. She turns away at that, trying to ignore the damp noise it makes; instead focusing on Cho's shoes. After a few moments her gaze flicks back up and she watches as the same nurse hands the tube away, reattaches the wires to his chest; and places the oxygen mask over his mouth.

She's staring at the fogging-over mask when the nurses leave, and she realizes suddenly that she's shaking, and covered in goose bumps a few moments after that; her gaze flicks to the side and she watches the steady moving line on the heart monitor before looking back at Jane.

She then grinds her jaw and tries not to cry.

Correct, she tries not to cry too much, but she lets a few tears of raw relief slide down her face; she allows herself to suck in a breath and thrive in the cold that follows as she swallows it down. She allows her fear to not plague her relief, for now at least.

She takes a few steps forward, her feet are shaking and the part of her mind that's focused on Cho is slipping and sliding out of reach until she's gone; and she's forgotten that he's in the room by the time she's walked around to Jane's bedside, back to her chair.

By the time she's lowered herself into it; his eyes have begun to twitch.

But by then, Cho is gone from the room and when the door snaps shut, she's taken his hand once more; more for her support, rather than his, because she needs this; she needs proof that he is still **alive**.

She intertwines their fingers together and lifts her legs; curling them underneath her, ignoring when the pain again and ignoring the sensation of needles dotting along her skin as the limbs go to sleep due to blood loss. She ignores all of it, and the only thing she sees is the skyline and the city, or the sleeping form of Jane. The only thing she hears is the rushing sound of footsteps outside the door, the stream of voices that never once breaks.

But no one comes into the room.

Half an hour ticks by, and that morphs into an hour; and soon enough another one passes, and by then she's started to drift, her hand's slack in Jane's and she's leaning back against the chair. Her head tilted back and mouth parted slightly, just a few centimeters; and she's having difficulty keeping her eyes open and the part of her brain that argues there really is no reason for her to stay awake anymore is winning, Jane's stable after all and has been.

After the third time she jerks awake, and finds nothing in the room that needs her attention; she gives in, settling against the chair and curling in on herself. Folds one arm into her lap, letting it sprawl across her thighs; curls her legs underneath her, and she squeezes Jane's hand once more before giving in completely; letting sleep wrap around her like a blanket, which she happily settles into.

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Her head is murky and her eyes a far too heavy, and she's battling against a single thought; _what's the point in waking up? _

The question keeps turning around in her mind, wrapping around it tight; and she's agreeing with it, up until the moment the sharp beeps begin to cut through her mind, and after a few moments she realizes that it's not her alarm going off, she's not at home, she's not in her bed. Instead, she's sitting in a chair at Jane's bedside.

This revelation snaps her awake and within seconds she's looking around the room, looking until she feels something twitch in her hand, and then her confusion is ripped away; the blanket's torn from her body within seconds and she turns, twisting in the chair to turn and face the man laying in the hospital bed.

The world spins slightly as her gaze blurs; she blinks fiercely, dispelling the tears; but managing not to let them fall. Jane's half-opened eyes blink back, a lazy smile slowly forming on his face; his fingers twitch from where they rest in her hand.

She squeezes them and offers him a smile, and scoots closer, pushing with her good foot against the floor as she moves the chair, both of them ignoring the ugly screech of protest it makes.

And as she settles in the chair once more she grips his hand a bit tighter, wrapping her fingers around his hand and in return he squeezes hers, just barely and only for a few seconds; but he tried, and that's good enough for her.

She swallows and inhales; ignoring the burn at the edges of her eyes, instead she glances over at the heart monitor by his bed; she watches the steady line for a few moments before looking back at him, and she swallows again.

"Hey," She says softly; the word coming out wet, and she blames it on the raw relief she's currently feeling.

She doesn't get a verbal response, instead her response is hidden in the way his eyes narrow slightly, and the little bit of tooth that shows through his lazy smile; and his attempt make her laugh slightly, a pure and light sound; that feels good as it climbs from her throat, she inhales sharply in the aftermath, realizing she probably shouldn't be laughing at him.

He just shakes his head, and attempts to raise an eyebrow.

She shakes her head at him and shrugs and just speaks, "You're gonna be okay, Jane."

His look morphs at the end of her sentence; and she watches with a small amount of amazement, as the fog lifts and his facial expressions become clear, his eyes open further, no longer half-lidded and he moves, just barely, so he's leaning against the pillows, closer to sitting up.

She then watches the light of disappointment form in his eyes, and she frowns at it, but it doesn't take her long to realize what it's for.

"Don't worry about me –"Something stirs with that, rising slightly to the surface before being yanked back under, a different sort of righteous anger – "focus on getting better, alright? Stop pushing it." She pauses, "And I mean it, if you pull one more trick like you did yesterday, your ass is fired." She smirks slightly at the end of the sentence, and he frowns; just barely before smiling back, a wicked sort of look climbing up his face.

She grins at him, turning in her chair; and the clock catches her eye.

It's five thirty.

She'd been asleep for nearly six hours.

The info goes down slowly, churning in her throat; and slowly it begins to dawn on her, the fact that for the next few days this will be her life; sleeping at even odder hours than before, and doing most of them at Jane's bedside, all the while she's striving towards recovery.

And so is he, matching her step for step; or at least, that's what she can hope for.

She draws her eyes slowly away from the clock, glancing down at Jane once more; and for a moment, she's silent, taking in the far more prominent lines of his face; and struggling to ignore the deep-inflicted sadness the image brings up.

She ignores the sadness, and focuses on the brighter side; he's alive, his hand wrapped around hers is proof of that.

Her gaze darts down at the thought, and she looks at the sight of their conjoined hands; and blinks, ignoring the tears that resurface, and choosing to smile at the way new one's don't take their place.

Her smile only grows when Jane squeezes her hand, it's a small movement but it means the world to her.

And that's when the door opens, and promptly the small safe haven the hospital room had created is shattered; the bright orange light that had been splattered across the room cracks and breaks when the door is open, only to be further disoriented as Cho's form enters the room; his shadow adding to the cracks in the light, blocking it from painting the walls.

And as her senior agent steps into the room, squinting at the light for a moment before turning to face her and Jane, she tries to pull her hand away.

Jane won't let her, because within the very lightest twitch, the first hint of her fingers skimming across his index as she goes to pull away, he grabs her hand and holds onto it like he's drowning; and she catches his gaze for a moment, and in that split second everything he's feeling is laid out before her.

And it's enough to make her not pull away, so she remains; leaning back into the chair and forcing herself to relax, even as Rigsby and Van Pelt walk into the room.

She however, can't stay relaxed when the doctor's enter, she moves in her chair and pushes herself upright, ignoring the needles that stab into her heel when her foot hits one of the legs. Dr. Yang, Kepner and Shepherd file in and take their stances on the sides of the bed, and the air in the room shifts; and any sort of comfort, safety; anything close to normality she'd been feeling is long gone.

Now the air is cold and sterile, with death looming over everything like a fog.

She realizes slowly, why Jane doesn't like hospitals, or at least part of his reasons.

She's yanked away rather violently from her thoughts when Dr. Yang clears her throat and speaks; glaring daggers at Jane, a smile pulling at the edges of her lips.

"I meant what I said about skinning you alive, don't try that again."

And the fog of death lifts, just slightly; outside the window the sun drops behind one of the buildings, casting light once more into the room; and for a little while longer, she'll feel safe in this new twisted reality.

The feeling only grows in the noise of soft chuckles that follow.

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It's becomes clear in the next few minutes that Dr. Yang is willing to take no bullshit from Jane, and at the same time she cares. It also becomes clear that Jane is going to test how far he can push her, the moment he can actually get up and push.

It also only takes her a few minutes to go over Jane's stats, assessing the health of his heart and balancing out the risk of another attack. She steps back after checking his pulse, and reaches for the chart at the end of his bed; flipping through it and finally speaking again. "So, how are you feeling?"

A snort is her answer, and she glances up over the chart.

"He can't speak." Is Lisbon's answer, and the doctor's eyes flip back and forth between the pair, pausing momentarily at their conjoined hands; nearly long enough for Lisbon to try and withdraw her hand once more, but Jane stops her with gripping it tighter and sending a pleading look in her direction.

She shuts the chart and places it in its cradle before turning to Dr. Shepherd, "Any diagnoses on that?" She asks, and the man in question steps forward slightly, folding his hands before him as he goes to speak.

"Mr. Jane, your MRI scan came back clean, we can't find any evidence of internal bleeding nor any sign of brain damage –"He pauses and swallows; and for a fleeting moment Lisbon wishes she could ignore the hesitant look on the man's face, look away from the edge in his eyes; but she can't, so instead she clings to the next few words that fall from his mouth. "As far as your inability to speak goes, we can't find a logical reason for it."

Another pause.

"It may be a psychological problem, but all I really have to offer is that only time can tell, how quickly you'll recover from this – trauma. I'm sorry, but there's nothing we can do at the moment, we'll continue running as many tests as we can, and we'll set you up with the best psychiatrists this hospital has to offer."

She grips his hand a bit tighter as he goes rigid at the word _psychiatrists_, but for a moment she can tell it doesn't cut too deep, doesn't reach and break through the walls he's built around his heart, because she watches the wicked look re-appear and knows that if he could speak, he'd be saying something harsh enough to get them to back down from that offer.

But he can't speak, so instead he looks at her with a pleading look; this time in humor, and she shakes her head, before looking back up at the doctors, and all the while ignoring Jane's fidgeting hand in hers.

"I'm not going to say anything." She snips at him, whispering before speaking loud enough for the entire room to hear; "What about an estimate for recovery time?" She asks.

Dr. Yang looks over at her, and before she can speak; Dr. Kepner steps forward, glancing between the pair and then meeting Lisbon's gaze. "For you, I'd say about maybe, three to four weeks, given the severity of your burns and I'd like to make sure the lacerations you obtained don't get infected and the best chance of that not happening is if –" She pauses and clears her throat, "We keep you here a bit longer than we would normally, with a burn patient."

There's a pause after she speaks, a few seconds of raw silence; the noise that's made as everyone takes the information in, unfolding it and seeing what's hidden between the lines, and this time it's not between the lines; it's instead spray painted across the page.

Dr. Kepner's keeping her longer so she can stay with Jane.

Everyone knows that, and has accepted that by the time the woman has stepped back; gesturing to Dr. Yang and Dr. Shepherd to continue.

Dr. Yang beats him to the punch, "Your heart's condition, and is stable at the moment but still very serious." She pauses, "And given the factor you've gone into cardiac arrest twice, the recovery will be much harder and the stress you put on it yesterday is only making it worse. I'd estimate maybe two, to three months until you can leave the hospital, and maybe just a few more days till you leave the ICU. But overall Mr. Jane, you're looking at maybe a year, until you are completely back on your feet."

The same silence follows the members of the CBI taking in the information; except this time there's nothing to unfold, no hidden truths; just the plain and almost-cold ones, laid out in front of them, sharp and pristine.

Jane's the first to move, he nods; his expression grim, but Lisbon can't seem to find any resentment in his eyes, given that he inflicted more damage on himself caused by his recent actions.

He doesn't regret making himself worse, to see her.

Dr. Shepherd takes in the looks on the faces around him before speaking once more, "And we will continue doing scans, looking for any damage that could have caused your inability to speak –" He pauses and shifts; pulling out a yellow slip from his lab coat's pocket. "Until we get any results, I can prescribe a drug without side affects to treat any damage that may have been done to your vocal cords during the trauma." He stands, pushing away from the wall he'd been leaning against; and Cho reaches him first, taking the prescription slip and nodding to the man; who returns to his original spot against the wall. "And as far as your arm goes, we will watch how it's healing progresses, and as Dr. Yang said, I highly suggest not putting any more stress on it." He pauses again, "And if it does not begin to recover soon, I'll suggest the possibility of a nerve graph."

This time its Lisbon who processes it all and she's nodding, gaining the clarification; up to maybe a month for her, maybe two to three for Jane.

They tell them all it varies for every patient, and then they're gone.

She glances at the clock as Cho shuts the door behind them, it's a little after six.

The sun has set and is now painting a deep blue on the edges of the skyline, and she recalls from the back of her mind; visiting hours end at seven.

Or at least, around seven, she's not exactly sure.

She shifts in her chair; lifting her head away from Jane, and looking at the members of her team, who surprisingly, all hold almost-impassive expressions. Her gaze stops on Cho. "You're in charge until I get back. Finish up the Martin's case, and I want updates." Her eyes flick to Rigsby, "Make sure you can gather all the proof from where Jane was taken, nearby security cameras, all of it." She turns to Grace. "I want you to continue the lead with Martin's teacher as the main suspect –" From where he lies, Jane nods, a faint echo of a smile on his face; and a glint of what she could label, if she wanted too, as pride in his eyes.

She resists the urge to scoff at it.

She looks away from Jane once more, at her surrounding team and inhales. "We'll catch him this time."

She doesn't need to explain who _he_ is, they all know.

Nothing else is said in the following minutes, or at least until Grace speaks once more. "We'll be back first thing tomorrow morning," And just like that; it's the curtain call. There's nothing else to be said; nothing else to be done, at least not tonight. So with those words, she and Rigsby head for the door, he holds the door open for her and promptly follows, it's Cho who pauses, with his hand wrapped on the metallic door knob, he turns and looks at the pair in the room.

"Call us, if you need anything." Is all he says, and then he's gone; sliding out the door and walking after the rest of the team members.

The room takes on the silence once more, filling up to the brim with it.

Jane shifts in his bed, and lightly, his fingers dance across the top of her hand; she looks down at him with a light frown on her face and blinks; she doesn't have to speak, and he can't; but he doesn't have to say anything anyway, they both know it.

They both know where to go from here, but at the same time, they don't.

So instead of speaking, she swallows and squeezes his hand one more time; and he just nods, and the blip flickers between them once more – she's turned on the TV and she'll let it play for a few seconds, lets the noise fill the room; let's herself sink into the noise it creates, the dull wave of being almost blissfully unaware settling over her – and then she promptly turns the TV off, and turns away from the screen; not bothering to watch the echo of the images, or the static clear the screen because she's done it enough times and she knows she'll end up with the same blank, pitch black screen.

And he seems alright with that, at staring at the blank screen.

She wonders, in that moment; holding his hand, if he ever thinks about what it might be like if he, if _they_ turned the TV on and left it on, and watch what it could become.

What _they _could become.

And as she looks at him, focusing on the reflection of his eyes; how his normally bright, blue-green eyes seem almost grey tonight she doesn't bother to plaster a smile on her face, because she's too tired for that; even though she has hardly done anything today, and she finds in the almost grey of his eyes, her answer.

He's always got the TV on; and it's become back ground noise to him, because he knows if he lets himself listen to it, he'll get sucked in, find himself sitting on the sofa and watching it with every speck of attention he has – and he can't do that, he's got work to do; they both do.

So she shifts her grip on her hand, and lets that revelation settle; and she knows; finding it in the lines of his face, he's decided to sit down in front of the TV.

Even if it's only for a few minutes.

Or at least, that's what he's telling himself for the moment.

Now she just needs to find out if she's willing to sit down next to him, for however long that may be.

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She stays with him for the next two hours, staying until she's positive he's fallen asleep; and then she stays a bit longer so she can watch the steady rise and fall of his chest, and then she leaves; but only after tucking his arm carefully under the covers of the thin bed sheet, after letting go of his hand.

And then she stays a bit longer after that; making sure he's dreaming, but not trapped in his nightmares.

And then she goes.

She promptly makes it half way down the hallway, and as she rounds the corner the pain starts; a snarling little hole, digging into the backside of her calf; twisting and coiling itself around the muscles in her leg, and the slice across her ankle begins to throb.

So when it starts, she stops; taking a seat and sinking into one of the rich, deep blue cushioned chairs pressed against the wall.

She leans back and then forward again; her hands sliding into her lap, where she then wrings them together; or at least up until the spot on her forearms where the tightly wrapped bandages begin, and then her fingers skim across the first layer of gauze she them draws back into her lap, and then draws into her thoughts.

Only to pull away at the first one that surfaces; all thoughts of Jane, and what she could do next; how she should go about this and in all honesty, that is not the main problem at the moment; the main problem here, and always has been Red John.

She scratches at the gauze.

She then drops her head; looking down at her arms, and shuts out her thoughts; ignoring them completely.

She strokes the medical tape with her thumb, smoothing out the air bubbles that surface as she goes; this is a part of her now, the medical tape and gauze; covering up the injuries until they heal completely and as she thinks the edges of her fingers dig into the corner of the tape, lifting slightly.

Then she realizes what she's doing and works frantically to smooth out the plastic; inwardly flinching at the way the corners peel and curl upwards, and after a few more attempts she gives up with a sigh; sinking into the chair on the exhale.

She stretches out her legs before her; ignoring the looks from passing nurses and interns, ignoring the daggers they send her with their eyes and she rotates her foot, cringing outwardly at the numbness, and pain spreading across it. She draws it back in when a patient waddles past, and after the patient has passed and rounded the corner she pushes herself to stand.

She hesitates, just a few seconds before standing completely, and the fear only grows as her stance wavers. But she manages to not fall, so that's enough to push her forward, to push her to begin walking down the hall once more, even if she doesn't know the destination of where she's going, yet.

She finds it as she continues down the hall; she'd had her eyes set on the elevator but something at the edge of her vision snags her, pulls her in; and she turns around completely, nearly bumping into the intern that rushes past.

She stares at the pristine door that reads, _Restroom _her gaze waving on the symbol above it, the small blue block that holds the white figures of both genders, and then suddenly she's moving, weaving through the crowd and not stopping till she's behind the door, and has locked it.

And as the lock clicks, she knows why she's here; she turns away from the door; leaning heavily against it, embracing the way the wood feels on the back of her arms and after a few moments she pushes away from it, striding into the opened space of the room, stopping when she reaches the front of the mirror hanging above the sink.

There's faint bruises beginning to form on her face; blocked by her hair, her face is clear with the exception of a few small scrapes; she pauses a moment, looking at her reflection before reaching around and grabbing the ties of the hospital's gown; wrapping them around her fingers and then finally, pulling and she lets the gown drop, crumble at her feet without any attempt to stop it as it slides down her arms.

She steps over the gown afterwards, resisting the urge to kick it to the side; and steps forward until she's in front of the mirror.

Her gaze flips past the fresh, angry bruises covering her body, pausing at the scrapes covering the skin underneath her breasts and spreading out over her ribs. The bruises blossoming out onto her left side, she lifts a hand and gently prods at them; hissing at the dull ache that follows.

She drops her hands halfway; before lifting her arms once more, she takes hold of her hair and pushes it over one of her shoulders, and in lack of a hair tie she uses her left hand to hold her hair in place.

She turns around then, taking in the sight of her bandaged back by glancing over her right shoulder, given that all her hair is tossed over her left.

Her entire upper back is bandaged; gauze underneath surgical tape, covering up anything that would be visible but on the top sections of her shoulders she spots the bumps; skin pushing upwards at awkward angles, being pulled taunt because of the dark blue, almost black, thread that pulls it down.

She lifts her free hand and runs her fingers across the protruding skin; it's numb, she realizes as she watches her fingers pass over the skin, she can feel the texture on her pads, the threads slicing across them, but she's lacking the feeling of her fingers dancing across.

So she drops her hand, and thinks that she should be thankful for it.

She swallows then and turns around, ignoring her reflection; ignoring the bright pink skin peaking out at the edges of the surgical tape. She walks back over to where her gown remains on the floor and picks it back up, sliding it down her arms with ease and then in continued movement re-tying the straps; pulling them tight until she's positive her chest is covered, and she doesn't have to worry about someone getting a glimpse at her underwear.

And then she leaves.

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And finds herself in the cafeteria nearly five minutes later, and as she walks, her mind is on auto pilot; although for a moment when she purchases something to drink, she bleeds back in; stopping just in time from buying coffee and instead getting a small cup of hot chocolate.

She takes a seat at the farthest table, walking past the interns and doctors without a word, and ignoring any questionable looks sent her way.

And as she slides into the seat her thoughts begin to poor in; as though the damn that had been keeping them back, making up excuses not to focus on them, had broken. Suddenly Red John is not the main problem but instead the biggest excuse; and as he fades away what Jane had confessed in the back of the ambulance takes center stage, takes up the places in her mind that Red John had held and more.

She knows now, that to Jane; the true possibility of their relationship had been nothing more than background noise to him for a long time, and in rare moments, of emotional and physical stress would come to hold his attention. Like walking through a room, multiple times with music or the TV on, you only stop when you like what's playing, and you want to find out more, or get more of it.

She on the other hand, never really knew that there was more of a possibility for their relationship, and she contemplates this; leaning back into her chair, picking up the hot chocolate and ignoring the burning sensations on her fingers and palms.

She places the cup back on the table after a few moments, leaning forward, and promptly lifts her legs up; curling them underneath her and settles back again and begins flipping through memories of the man in question, he's known this, surely he would have left hints? Less obvious than the first, _Love you._ But hints, none the less; and she scans her memories, looking for moments of could-have-been's and what-ifs. Moments that captured her, even when they passed; that soaked into her skin and prodded and poked at the edges of her mind late at night.

_The sun is warm against her back; pressing tight, bleeding in through the thick material of her jacket. She turns from where she's kneeling, listening to the gravel crunch under her heal before looking up at Jane. "It's Kansas city." She turns back to the body before her; looking back at the music notes, attempting to recall the beat, ignoring the way he repeats her words; she doesn't have to look at him to know he's got that contemplating look on his face._

"_How does that go?" He asks and she pushes herself to stand; something in her has clicked, giddiness and a sense of pride bleeding back into her veins as she recalls that tune; her hands begin to move without her permission as she speaks; a old habit from her youth, picking it up from her mother, a tactic she used to keep hold of the beat when singing, so of course she really shouldn't have been so surprised at what happened next. _

"_You know," Then she's humming, moving softly to her own beat. He's staring at her; impassive as ever, but she can see it; that small look of curiosity on the skin between his eyebrows and the glint of something in his eyes; then she's singing, the strong, soft low tune, and her hands are moving to keep with the beat._

_A few moments later a look of revelation and a noise to match the look, he's singing along; and the smile on his face makes it all worth it, and she finds herself for wanting to make that look grow; bloom into something more but then out of the corner of her eye she spots him; the solider standing across from them on the other side of the body and she freezes, her words and needs dying in her throat as she turns to face the truly impassive man, ignoring Jane's chuckles at her side. _

She withdraws from the memory and finds herself smiling.

_A few weeks after that, after a particularly tough case, she'd broken tradition of a box of donuts, or pizza for the reward of solving the case and instead insisted that they all go down to the local pub down the street; and then a few hours later she had begun to regret that decision, just a bit; but the regret soon faded into something warmer as she watched Cho record a very drunk Rigsby singing karaoke with his phone. _

"_You know, I think that's gotta be an improvement from what he normally sounds like." _

_She swivels in her seat, turning and glancing over her shoulder; looking and taking in the sight of her grinning consultant as he shifts in the chair next to hers._

"_Hush," She tells him with a smile and his grin only grows._

"_You know it's true." He taunts her._

_She snorts and doesn't justify that with a direct answer; instead she goes for something else. "Like you could do any better?" _

_His grin turns into a smirk which looks truly wicked on his face, and the blip of something passes between them – she's turned on a TV, and lord behold, it's a sex scene from a movie – and she promptly turns it off, and he seems just as willing to turn it off, to ignore what just passed between them in favor of stirring is straw in what is so obviously nothing more than water, and all the while humming softly; and after a few moments, she realizes what it is; he's humming Kansas city._

_She then promptly feels heat flood her cheeks, climbing up her neck; and she blames the heat prickling on her lower back on the drinks she's had (even if it was only a beer and a half of one, which she hadn't touched in the past hour) "Shut up, Jane." She tells him and he does the exact opposite. _

"_I still can't believe you sung like that."_

"_You're surprised I can sing?" She asks, caught in her own disbelief and confusion on how to take that statement._

"_No, I knew you could, I'm talking about the fact you did it over a body, or in front of others." _

_She glares at him, "You asked."_

_His eyebrows shoot up as he dips his head, taking a sip from his drink and when he pulls away that wicked look has morphed into something else; pride, arrogance; and the TV's been turned on again, and this time it was him who 'accidently' leaned onto the remote._

"_Oh, now it's you'll do anything I ask?" His tone is teasing; but something, in the very back of his eyes says otherwise; and it only fuels the fire, he's not making any move to get off the remote, instead, he's now picked it up and is turning the volume up. _

"_It seemed like a reasonable request at the time." She stutters, and promptly curses herself for it. _

_That's when he leans in; pulling his bar stool closer to hers, shifting so he's facing her; his back shielding them from anyone behind him, "Oh, so if it's reasonable, you'll do it?"_

_She stares at him; he'd purred, he just purred out that question, done it with underlying seduction in his tone, and she'd seen that light in his eyes bloom and become a star. She stares until he lifts a hand and prompts the bottom of her chin; and she realizes with another flash of heat that she'd been staring at him with her mouth open; she'd been gaping at him. _

_She clicks her tongue then, tilting her head slightly, and one hand drifting towards her beer bottle, only to float back and rest in her lap with its twin. "Nothing is ever exactly reasonable with you, Jane. You know that." She's purring right back, and oh god – is he leaning in? The thin band of light across his shoulder shifts; covering the folds of the fabric as he moves, blocking everything out in the bar with the exception of himself; and as he moves closer she can hear the soft thump of feet as he steps down from his bar stool and takes a small half-step, and then he's looming over her. _

_This time the only light in his eyes is casted by the pathetic and weak ones glowing above the bar, and she watches with a tight throat as his pupils dilate when they flick across her face and then without a doubt, he's leaning in, tilting his head slightly and she can feel the dip in her seat near her thigh as one hand comes to rest on the edge of it. _

"_Yo, Jane!" _

_His head snaps up and away so fast she feels the gentle brush of curls across her forehead and a small breeze, she hears the way his fingernails scrape on the bottom of the seat as his knuckles curl around it; feels the small vibration that's caused by the movement. _

_Then she's left staring at the back of his head; looking at how stiff and rigid his stance is, and she wonders if that's because of the realization about what he'd been about to do, or the fact he'd been caught before he could do it, and if his stance is one of regret._

_She finds the owner of the voice first; Rigsby, stepping down from the stage, and making his way over. Then she finds Cho, who's looking almost – surprised, and Grace is nowhere to be seen, but within seconds she wanders into view, standing from her place at Cho's side and crossing the bar; obviously going to incept Rigsby._

_That's when her attention is yanked back to the man in front of her; the gentle brush of fingers across the top of her thigh, her head snaps up from its slightly dipped position just in time to catch his gaze; which takes her breath away, large dilated pupils, and not a hint of regret, of that terrified look, instead; disappointment, and maybe a look of promise and then he pulls away; his fingers drifting down her thigh and vanishing at the edge of her knee; gone without a trace._

"_What is it Rigsby?" He's asking; but his voice is distant, and filled with an impressive amount of cheer once more, no longer raw and ragged like how it had been when he'd been speaking to her moments before. _

She pulls away from her mind, cutting off the memory; not wanting to re-live the confusion and sorrow that had followed later into the night, Jane never made another move; never came close to, and that had been months ago; so long ago that she'd written it off as nothing, or that he was simply teasing her, wanting to see how far it could go.

She realizes now, that it unrealistic to even attempt to label that as a tease; he hadn't been teasing, and neither had she; that was just an excuse for his actions in the long run.

She draws in a breathe and lets it out in a heavy sigh, glancing over at the cup of hot chocolate, she lifts a hand and runs her fingers across the rub; it's gone cold.

She swallows and draws her hand back, letting it drop to her lap; only to rise again a few moments later to scrub at her eyes at the realization that flickers through her mind; she'd had every intention of kissing Jane in that moment.

She drops her hand and sighs again, sinking her teeth into her lip and chewing at it; surprised a few moments later by her suddenly damp eyes.

She blinks, and dispels any tears; knowing that they are not of the raw relief that seems to lurk just underneath the surface now, but instead of something else entirely; something she can't bring herself to name, and out of that, she shuts the previous thoughts out; and brings forth even older ones.

_It'd been about two weeks before the incident at the bar and they'd been stuck in the case of the murder at the theater, and LaRoche had just shown up; and she'd turned to Jane, ready and all about to deliver some sort of threat – she'd had it with his bullshit lately, but the second she turned towards him something in her clicked. _

_Suddenly, instead of demanding answers she's got the sudden urge to grab him by the lapels, shove him up against the nearest wall and kiss him senseless. _

_Later, she'll just blame that need on the lighting, and incredibly smug, sexy, no not sexy – he's her consultant for god's sake! She'd blame it on the lighting, and the smug, arrogant look on his face and the rush that came with wrapping up a case, knowing that they'd had it caught in the bag._

_She'd yanked herself away from the thoughts as soon as she realized the first one had crossed her mind – shoving him up against the elevator wall once they'd made it back to the CBI and – and her throat had been tight when she'd gone to swallow; trying to cover up the look of horror and realization that she knows must be showing on her face. She managed to control it, and then in the aftermath, she recalls glancing towards Jane; who had been completely oblivious to her sudden change in thought._

She yanks herself away from that memory, and realizes in horror that she'd bitten into her lip hard enough to draw blood, so she lifts a hand and scrubs at her lip, trying to get some oxygen into her system.

And as she runs her tongue over her lip; hoping to get rid of the final traces of the metallic taste she realizes something, that pushes away the horror of her thoughts and replaces it with amusement. She's got Jane staring at her ass plenty of times, she's seen the barely hidden lust in the glint of his eyes, or painted on his face with a livid expression from the corner of her eye.

She smirks to herself, if he's allowed to do that; isn't she allowed the same?

And she realizes then; the ball of thought continuing to roll, becoming more steady as it goes, that this, all of the would-have-been's, small sexual and intimate exchanges; where the moments when whatever was playing on the TV was a little bit louder than normal, and they'd both been in the room, and what was playing had captivated their attention, long enough to keep them there only for a few moments to consider sitting down and seeing what could happen.

But it hadn't been enough, to keep them and cause them to sit down and watch what they could become.

But, she also realizes; that it could have been enough to cause them to sit down for a little while, to relax and watch if only for a few minutes.

But she also realizes; a few minutes, wouldn't have been enough in the long run.

She wants something more than that.

She _deserves_ something more than that.

And he does too.

They both deserve something more than a few minutes, if they are going to sit down and find out what they could become.

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He's standing in the middle of the road and it's raining.

That's the very first thing he notices; the next thing he see's is the deep, rich dark gray surrounding and blurring out the edges of his visions, making what he can see; the corners of buildings and the tar beneath his feet all the more pristine.

Making the cars speeding by more alive, deeper in color; and making the streaks of light the headlights bring look like falling stars.

He turns in the spot where he's standing, turning to face the wind as it begins to whip almost violently around him. He squints and watches as the fall of rain shifts, and then stops all together; frozen and unmoving, the colors surrounding him become lighter versions of their original selves, and then suddenly the wind stops but the rain remains frozen in place, and for a moment everything is completely silent.

And that's when he hears it.

It's low and graining at first, a drawn out tainted noise; and as he begins to walk, heading down the center of the street the screeching begins to die and instead turn into words.

Without warning the rain begins again; and in seconds he's soaked, completely drenched from head to toe and then he's running, thriving on the sound of his feet hitting the damp tar and clinging to the low screeching swimming in his ears, desperately searching for the words once more.

He shifts from the street to the sidewalk, his hair is plastered against his forehead and in a fit of frustration he lifts his hand and shoves it back, running his fingers through the wet locks to ensure they stay plastered together. He turns another corner and sucks in a breath; his shirt clings to him like a second layer of skin and the cold is beginning to prickle at his skin.

And as the feeling of his fingertips vanish, he considers stopping; and as this thought passes through his increasingly murky mind, he hears the words in his ears once more; and so he continues, and a few steps later he finds himself standing in front of a well lit café.

Lights so warm in fact, they are casting a soft orange halo on the edges of the glass that makes up the window; and painting away the dark and soupy look of the cobble stones beneath his feet, filling in the cracks with the bright and cheery colors.

He scans the window for a few moments, and then he spots the source of the song, a small radio is placed on the counter inside, the antenna stretched upwards; a small white gardenia is wrapped around the antenna, and despite the awkward look the flower is thriving with life; standing strong and tall, extending past it's support beam.

He moves then, keeping his eyes on the flower inside; heading for the door, and as his fingers wrap around the door knob and he pulls the door so it's slightly ajar the music swoops in, grabbing him with a sort of gluttony and pulling at emotions he keeps locked up tight, and in the chaos of it all he feels it; the hand brushing past the edge of his shoulders.

He spins around as soon as the hand vanishes; glancing frantically around, he drops his hand from the door knob, and dashes away from the warm, inviting music of the café in favor of running down the completely empty street once more.

And yet he doesn't question his decision as he runs across the street, retracing his steps.

He makes it about half way when he hears it, rather that feels it.

"Jane!"

He turns, and spots her; standing in the same spot he'd been, moments before; hand resting on the door knob and all. She's frowning at him, looking almost confused; and he can see flickers of annoyance in her eyes, along with underlying amusement.

His hands flutter at his sides; palms facing upwards in a gesture, he feels his own frown flutter across his face, and he begins to walk rather than run in her direction. She rolls her eyes and walks into the café, and that's when he runs after her.

He's running, so he never saw it coming; one moment his feet are touching the ground in a steady beat, and in the next he's in the air, only to promptly be slammed onto the ground seconds later, and this time; he's no longer cold, instead he's warm.

He's warm, but still unable to breathe.

Then he feels it, the flutter of hands across his back and the terrified shout. "Jane – Jane!" She's right above him, hovering just out of reach, and he can't even lift a hand. He feels tears trickle from the edges of his eyes as he attempts to open them, she says something; but he can't hear her.

He swallows then, and his mouth gets flooded with something metallic; and surprisingly, he isn't confused, he isn't panicking either, he's just there. He swallows again, and attempts to breath; pushing past the coiling structure around his lungs, and then he attempts to speak.

"Lisbon," His eyes are shut again – he doesn't know when that happened, it just did.

"I'm here."

"Lis –" He pauses, his chest flutters and for a split second he panics, raw and unadulterated fear flooding his system and pounding through him, but then he tries again. "Lisbon." And everything is all right.

He doesn't get an answer, and he doesn't panic; because for some reason, that seems alright.

But he says it again anyway, "Lisbon.." His head rotates, tilting and falling until it's resting in a steady forming puddle on the tar beneath him.

No answer, and that seems alright.

Seems, being the most important thing. This pushes him to swallow, to move his lips despite the unnatural feeling passing through them when he goes to speak, "Teresa?"

He still can't open his eyes.

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She doesn't know how long it's been, how long she's been sitting in the chair; but she does know she toned out the world around her hours ago and she thinks distantly, she may have started to drift to sleep despite the fact she's sitting in what could be the most uncomfortable chair ever.

But she knows it's been a while when the person before her takes a seat with a frown on their face.

"Shouldn't you be in your room?" It's a woman; a very pregnant woman.

She blinks, and promptly blinks again; scrambling and grasping for her thoughts, attempting to shake off the fog that had formed across her mind, she swallows and clears her throat; blinking a final time before speaking. "I probably should be, shouldn't I?" She asks, glancing around for a clock.

The woman across from her smiles; her tone is kind, sweat, ironically almost motherly. "I don't know," She answers, "You tell me."

Lisbon shifts in her chair, squirming slightly; she sucks in a breath and lets it out before speaking, "Do you have the time?" She asks.

The woman across from her glances towards her lap; opening her mouth slightly, "Yup, just after midnight." She answers, promptly looking back up, "If you mean time to listen, then I've got that too."

Lisbon shifts in her chair once more, going to stand; she's got – problems, that she needs to sort through, idea's she needs to figure out, but she's not about to do it with a complete stranger; she'll do it by herself. The doctor goes to stand, shaking slightly as she does and Lisbon turns around to face her; helping her from her seat.

"Shouldn't you be at home?" She asks.

The woman smiles at her, rubbing her belly as she talks; clearly an unconscious action, "I should be but my husband's going over some cat scans upstairs and I don't wanna risk driving home, besides I've got some paperwork to do."

She nods and swallows, "Well, thank you for your concern, but I'm fine." And as if to prove a point, she offers up a smile at the end of her sentence; the doctor nods, and acts like she believes her, and doesn't press it. For that she's thankful.

And then she goes, turning and walking from the cafeteria; leaving the stone cold hot chocolate on the table, and she brushes past the other doctors a few tables down without a word, and also without a glance in their direction despite the fact she can feel them watching her as she leaves.

She's almost limping by the time she makes it to the elevator, and she slumps against the wall once she presses the button for the third floor; the elevator hums softly and begins its ascent.

She draws in a breath and wonders if she should tell someone, a friend; maybe Grace, about the thoughts pounding through her head.

But she doesn't get to consider it because as the elevator pulls up to the second floor, the doors thing and open; a intern steps in, the same one who had let her into the ICU the other night. She glances in her direction and with a small smile begins to speak. "You know, I could prescribe you some sleeping pills if you want."

Lisbon cracks a smile at that and shifts against the wall, "I'll have to decline on that offer, but thank you."

The intern nods and smiles, and then turns towards her, extending her hand. "I'm Dr. Grey." She says and Lisbon takes her hand and shakes it.

"And you know me." She offers.

The intern cracks a smile, the elevator's doors slide shut and began their ascent upwards once more; skipping past the third floor all together, much to her alarm.

At her side Dr. Grey makes a face and sighs when the button for the fourth floor lights up, "Sorry about that, this elevator's pretty old." By the time she's done speaking the doors have opened once more; and she steps out, smiling and greeting an older man who's waiting on the other sides of the doors.

Lisbon watches as Dr. Grey embraces the man, and the pair promptly heads down the hall way, arms wrapped around each other; heads bent as they whisper softly.

They don't spare her a second glance, and as their forms begin to vanish from view the doors begin to slide shut, and just before they click shut she moves; stumbling out of the elevator and onto the fifth floor, where she then begins to run; dashing down the halls, right past the love stricken couple, who chuckle in her wake as she clears the hall.

She slows her run to a walk as she rounds the corner, getting her breathing in check rather quickly; and she pushes through the steady pulse wrapped around her ankle, and as she wraps her hand around the door knob of the ICU she realizes what she's doing.

And she's perfectly fine with it, and as she steps silently into the room; taking care as she shuts the door, she realizes that it'll be hours before Jane wakes.

And she's perfectly fine with waiting, she decides this as she slips past his bed, and sinks into the chair at his side, tilting her head towards the window; she settles in, bracing herself for another night alone with her thoughts.

And she's okay with that, because she knows what will come in the morning; she'll have her answers by then.

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He's drowning.

That's what this feels like; his lungs are filled to the brim with the dark, churning water that surrounds him; there's a weight pressing against his stomach, and he knows it's his stomach pressing against his skin; unnaturally full with salty water.

He gasps and tosses his head back, hands scrabbling for nothingness; his fingers are numb and tingling softly, with the sharp prick of needles in several places. He squeezes his eyes shut and opens them; staring at the pitch black sky above, with the exception of the inkling of a few white stars.

He's drowning and he can't stop it.

He's going to drown, and die.

His eyes flutter shut; and he accepts it, shutting his mouth once more he lets the current pull him under, suck him deep down and wrap around him like a lover.

He never could stop it.

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When he opens his eyes the first thing he see's is her silhouette, sharp and pure against the rising light of the morning, he turns his head; glancing at the clock.

6:07 AM

He turns back to her, and she shuffles in her spot turning around to face him and as she moves the sunlight cuts through the dark curtain of her hair; casting her face in a soft and gentle light, he watches as she swallows; she's got a confidant look on her face, everything about her is radiating in it; but her eyes betray her stance, the bent inwards light; the deer caught in the headlights.

He watches as she inhales; her shoulders lifting gently and she lifts her arms around her; hands curling at the opposing elbow, thumbs rubbing small circles. She sighs, and then inhales again and when she begins to speak her voice cracks; so she clears her throat and tries again, her voice is very, very tiny.

"What did you mean when you said you loved me?" She asks, and she blinks; the light in her eyes curls up right and tucks itself away, and the deer is only fearing death more so, rather than accepting it.

It's his turn to swallow now, to look like the deer trapped in the headlights of the oncoming car, and as his head begins to clear; pushing out the fog that came with sleep, a new reality takes hold; realization of what she's just asked.

He wonders if it's wrong, that he's not panicking, scrambling for excuses or answers.

He decides it isn't.

So, then he moves; lifting his left arm and stretching it across his chest, ignoring the way the heart monitor blares from its position in the corner. Scooping up the notepad from the bedside table, he then pulls his arm back and sinks into the pillows, gripping his price tightly. At once he uncaps the pen by pulling the cap off with his teeth, and balancing the sun splattered notepad against his thigh he begins to write, his words slow and sloppy at first as he attempts to see past the sharp white light radiating off the page, and then as he continues his words become legible, long and pristine; beautiful.

He then writes her an answer.

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AN'S: I'm sorry, I'm such a tease .

And I'm also sorry that this update took so long! And that it's not as long as the previous chapter, it's just that I'm still in school at the moment and the past two weeks grades were closing for the third quarter, and I was left scrambling trying to raise them to something decent and then on top of that I've got a lot of crap going at the moment.

I also had to completely re-write this chapter because I was so unhappy with it the first time, and now again I'm still not happy with the ending. I feel like I've lost hold of where this story is going, and Jane and Lisbon's characters.

Anyway, I've got a vacation coming up in the next four days, so I'm hoping to write the fifth chapter then, and also some reviews and if you guys are enjoying this, or what could be improved would be really helpful.

I hope you enjoyed this chapter.

Also, about the slow updates, I've got another idea for a Mentalist fic, that I may or may not post…it involves Jane and a large medical problem (and it's not a bullet wound this time!) would anyone be interested in hearing more about that/reading it? Personally, I'd much rather write that, than this story. And if any of you want to be on the lookout for it, given that I most likely _will _write it, it'll be called; I'm not okay.


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